John was a new assistant professor in Immunology at Duke University, when he first encountered Wendy. Freshly graduated at that point, Wendy was undecided about a career in medicine or research, but the inspiring interactions she had with John quickly convinced her that research in immunology was definitely her call.

John C. Cambier is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Immunology & Microbiology at the University of Colorado, Denver and a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Research, School of Medicine National Jewish Health Denver, CO, USA.

The overarching goal of Dr. Cambier’s research is to understand how immune responses are regulated at the level of receptor signaling, and to translate this knowledge to understand  and treat immune abnormalities in humans. His work is currently focused on specific problems related to tolerance and autoimmune diseases. Insights gained from his work suggest an important role for environmental factors such as infections and injury in predisposing individuals to autoimmune diseases. Parallel studies in his laboratory seek to understand whether and how environment factors such as infections and tissue damage defeat tolerance mechanisms.

“Wendy joined my laboratory in 1979 soon after completing her undergraduate degree in Zoology at Duke.  Her primary responsibility initially was to help me develop an institutional flow cytometry facility employing a rudimentary, but state of the art, instrument that was commercially available at the time. This was technologically very challenging but she rose to the task. It quickly became clear that she was a gifted experimentalist, and this led to her active participation in our B cell work and publication of four original studies prior to her departure to graduate school at the University of Chicago in 1982.”