Dr. Gary Koretzky ’78, is the recipient of the 2024 American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is the highest honor bestowed by the AAI Council upon an AAI member and recognizes a deserving member for a career of scientific achievement and for contributions to AAI and fellow immunologists. Koretzky is the first Cornell faculty member to receive the distinction.

“I am humbled to receive this recognition and honored to be included among so many accomplished scientists who have received this award before me,” says Koretzky, who is a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a joint-appointment as professor of immunology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the College of Veterinary Medicine. He was previously the Dean of the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and Vice Dean of Research at Weill Cornell Medicine, then served as vice provost for academic integration at Cornell and as the founding director of the Cornell Center for Immunology. Koretzky served as AAI president for 2021-2022

Koretzky’s research focuses on immune cell signaling, specifically how adapter proteins nucleate multi molecular complexes that regulate, both positively and negatively, immune cell activation. Most recently, he has explored the impact of modulating key signaling pathways in the host response to malignancy. Koretzky has published more than 250 peer reviewed papers and has been recognized for his scientific contributions with election to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and as a Master of the American College of Rheumatology.

Established in 1913, AAI is an international association of scientists with a mission to advance the knowledge of immunology and its related disciplines, foster the interchange of ideas and information among investigators and address the potential integration of immunologic principles into clinical practice. It owns and publishes the Journal of Immunology, the field’s flagship journal, as well as ImmunoHorizons, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the science of immunology. The AAI boasts 27 Nobel Laureates and approximately 7,700 members across 68 countries.

Written by Lauren Cahoon Roberts