Denise Faustman's Biography

Denise Faustman, Director, Immunobiology Laboratory & Associate Professor of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School

Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, is Director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is currently leading a human clinical trial program testing the efficacy of the BCG vaccine for reversal of long-term type 1 diabetes. Her research accomplishments include the first scientific description of modifying donor tissue antigens to change their foreignness, the identification of interrupted T cell education through MHC class I, and the identification of autoimmune T cell sensitivity to TNF. These achievements have earned her awards including the National Institutes of Health and National Library of Medicine’s “Changing the Face of Medicine Award” as one of 300 American physicians (one of 35 in research) honored for seminal scientific achievements in the United States, the “Oprah Achievement Award” for “Top Health Breakthrough by a Female Scientist,” and the “Women in Science Award” from the American Medical Women’s Association and Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company for contributions to autoimmune disease research. Dr. Faustman has been senior author on over 100 peer-reviewed papers, and her research has been highlighted in publications including Science, Nature, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The London Financial Times and Scientific American. She earned her MD and PhD from Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed her internship, residency, and fellowships in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital.