Raif Salim Geha

Biography

 Raif Salim Geha received his M.D. degree in 1969 from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and trained in Pediatrics and Immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School under a Fogarty International Fellowship. He became Head of the Division of Allergy at Children’s in 1976 and was appointed Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in 1987, where he now holds the James L. Gamble chair of Pediatrics. Since 1988, he has headed the Combined Allergy, Immunology, Rheumatology and Dermatology Division at Children’s. Dr. Geha’s research interests are in the fields of primary immunodeficiencies, T cell activation, IgE isotype switching, and mechanisms of atopic dermatitis. He has contributed to date more than 315 original articles, 150 reviews, several monographs and a book. His publications have appeared in Cell, Immunity, Nature, Molecular Cell, PNAS, J. Experimental Medicine, J. of Immunol. and JACI. Dr. Geha has received the Mead Johnson Award for Pediatric Research, the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences Prize, and the Scientific Achievement Award from the International Association of Allergology and Clinical Immunology. He has served on a number of NIH study sections and on the NIAID council, has been a director of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians, has presided over the Clinical Immunology Society and chairs the IUIS Committee on Immunodeficiency. Over the past 25 years Dr. Geha has trained more than 100 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have risen to leadership positions in the fields of allergy and Immunology.

Research Interest

 Primary immunodeficiencies, T cell activation, IgE isotype switching, and mechanisms of atopic dermatitis