Marc Jenkins PhD

Marc Jenkins was born and raised in Minnesota. His fascination with science began with an experiment in high school biology class to find out if Listerine really “kills germs.” He began to pursue a scientific career at the University of Minnesota where he received a BS degree in Microbiology in 1980. He performed Frisbee demonstrations to help finance his college education. Northwestern University was his next career stop. He completed a PhD there 1985 in Microbiology and Immunology working with Stephen Miller on helper T cells and delayed type hypersensitivity. He and his wife Karen had a son born in Chicago. A desire to understand helper T cell biology at a more molecular level brought him to the Laboratory of Immunology (LI) at the National Institutes of Health for postdoctoral training with Ronald Schwartz. Jenkins was immersed there from 1985 to 1988 in the golden age of the LI when many discoveries about T cell antigen receptor specificity, antigen processing, peptide-MHC binding, and T cell activation were made. His family grew there with the addition of identical twin daughters. He then went home in 1988 to join the Microbiology Department at the University of Minnesota (U of M) as an Assistant Professor. He is now a Distinguished McKnight Professor and heads the U of M Center for Immunology. His research group tries to understand how antigen-specific helper T cells participate in the adaptive immune response. Jenkins is an Institute for Scientific Information Highly Cited Researcher, Pew Scholar, American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Meritorious Career Awardee, NIH MERIT Awardee, and two of his papers have been recognized by the AAI as “Pillars of Immunology.” Jenkins has served his professional community as President of the AAI, and his residential community as an elected member of the public school board. In his spare time, Jenkins enjoys bicycling and fishing, both the winter and summer kinds, and is enthralled with art of public speaking.