Scientific Advisory Board

Richard A. Flavell, PhD, FRS

Dr. Richard Flavell received his B.Sc. (Honors) in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1970 in biochemistry from the University of Hull, England, and performed postdoctoral work in Amsterdam (1970-72) with Piet Borst and in Zurich (1972-73) with Charles Weissmann. Before accepting his current position in 1988, Dr. Flavell was first Assistant Professor (equivalent) at the University of Amsterdam (1974-79); then Head of the Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London (1979-82); and subsequently President and Chief Scientific Officer of Biogen Research Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1982-88). Dr. Flavell is a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of EMBO, the National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Flavell served as the founding Chairman of Yale’s Department of Immunobiology for 28 years, stepping down in early 2016.

Dr. Flavell is co-discoverer of introns in cellular genes: he showed DNA methylation correlates inversely with, and prevents, gene expression. He was the first to develop reverse genetics as a postdoc and in his own lab continued in this field throughout his career; he is a pioneer and sophisticated practitioner in the use of this approach in vivo to study function. Dr. Flavell’s laboratory studies the molecular and cellular basis of the immune response, particularly as it applies to autoimmune and auto inflammatory diseases. He has published more than 1000 peer reviewed papers and is one of the world’s most cited immunologists.

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