Dr. Anthony Vella, Chair of the Department of Immunology who holds the Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Immunology and is the Senior Associate Dean of Research Planning and Coordination; has been elected as a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Dr. Vella's laboratory research focuses on aspects of T cell costimulation and inflammation biology with the aim to uncover how T cells function. Overall, his laboratory has uncovered fundamental concepts in basic immunology and adjuvant research, and has extended these finds into tumor immunotherapy projects, T cell immunobiology, inflammatory based disease models including lung injury and metabolism research.