E. John Wherry, PhD

E. John Wherry, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the Director of the Penn Institute for Immunology (IFI). He earned his PhD at Thomas Jefferson University in 2000 and went on to do his postdoctoral research at Emory University, where he trained for four years with Rafi Ahmed, PhD. Dr. Wherry was appointed assistant professor in 2005 in the Immunology Program at the Wistar Institute, and then he joined the Department of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine in 2010.

Dr. Wherry is the Director of the Institute for Immunology, a type 2 center at the University of Pennsylvania whose mission is to advance our knowledge of the basic immunology of inflammation, autoimmunity, cancer, transplantation, and infection and to translate this new knowledge to novel strategies for diagnosis, prevention, and therapeutic intervention. The long-term goal of Dr. Wherry’s lab is to develop approaches to reinvigorate the immune system in settings where it fails including chronic infections and cancer. Throughout his tenure at both The Wistar Institute and the Department of Microbiology, Dr. Wherry had a deep involvement in the Immunology Graduate Group (IGG) and the larger immunology community.

He served as IGG admissions chair from 2006 to 2011 and then as chair of the Immunology Graduate Group from 2011 to 2013. He remains on the IGG Executive Committee and has mentored numerous graduate students in the IGG program and other graduate groups within the Biomedical Graduate Studies program.

Dr. Wherry has received numerous distinctions for his contributions to infectious disease research. A major focus of the research in his lab is to understand the mechanisms and reversibility of T-cell exhaustion and dysfunction during chronic infections and to dissect mechanisms of effective T-cell immunity to vaccination and infection. In 2014 he received the distinguished Alumni Award from the Thomas Jefferson University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. In 2009 he was appointed a member of the faculty of 1000 and has been named a Highly Cited Researcher and a Rising Star by Thomson/Reuters ISI in 2014 and 2006, respectively. In 2007 he was named one of “America’s young innovators—37 under 36” by Smithsonian Magazine.

Dr. Wherry has more than 150 publications in top international journals, including Nature, Science, Nature Immunology, Immunity, and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. His publications have been cited more than 27,000 times and have an

h-index of 68. His work has resulted in international recognition as evidenced by many invitations for seminars and extensive local and national service.

• 1993: Pennsylvania State University, BS Science
• 2000: Thomas Jefferson University, PhD Immunology

• 2007: 37 Under 36: America's Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences, Smithsonian Magazine