Prof. Wilfred Jefferies – a researcher, immunologist and professor in Microbiology & Immunology as well as Medical Genetics and the Biomedical Research Centre – has been elected as a Fellow for the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The NAI is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encourage inventors in academia and is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to eminent academic inventors. 

The NAI Fellows Program elects academic scholars and inventors in any discipline who have demonstrated exceptional innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. 

Joining a prestigious group of only 13 academic inventors in Canada to be elected, Prof. Jefferies is the first Canadian immunologist to be included and is being recognized for his innovative strategies and outstanding inventions that enable cancer immunotherapies and vaccines. 

“It is a great honour to be elected as a Fellow of the NAI and to represent Canadian research in immunology and cancer. I would sincerely like to acknowledge my former and current colleagues for their hard work and dedication,” says Professor Jefferies, who is being recognized for his seminal discoveries on mechanisms underpinning cancer immune surveillance, and immune-editing by T lymphocytes, as well as dendritic cell cross-priming that triggers immune responses.

Jefferies is currently the author of over 100 manuscropts and 60 patens worldwide, a Principal Investigator at the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Head of Immune Oncology at the Vancouver Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital. 

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Prof. Jefferies’ achievement was also featured on the UBC Medicine and Michael Smith Laboratories websites.