Lawrence Stern

Lawrence Stern is a Professor of Pathology at UMass Chan Medical School and holds academic positions across multiple departments within T.H. Chan School of Medicine and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, including Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, Immunology, and Translational Science. He earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Cornell University (1983) and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from MIT (1989), followed by postdoctoral training at Harvard and MIT. His research focuses on molecular mechanisms of immune recognition, particularly antigen presentation by MHC proteins and T cell activation signaling.

Key research areas include:

• Structural biology of MHC-peptide complexes and their role in T cell activation
• Antigen presentation pathways in dendritic cells and microglia
• Role of MHC class II-associated proteins (HLA-DM, HLA-DO) in peptide editing
• Development of MHC oligomer reagents for T cell detection in infectious diseases
• Mechanisms of TCR clustering-induced signaling via cytoplasmic domain conformational changes
• Immunopeptidome analysis in viral infections and autoimmune disorders

Recent work highlights discoveries about extracellular antigen presentation pathways, conformational dynamics of MHC proteins, and allosteric regulation of aminopeptidases critical for antigen processing. Current research combines structural, biochemical, and cellular approaches to unravel fundamental immunological processes with implications for vaccine design and immune therapies.

Laboratory affiliation: Stern Lab focuses on structural immunology and translational research in antigen presentation mechanisms. Collaborations span virology, cancer immunology, and autoimmune disease modeling.