David H. Sherr, Ph.D.

Professor David H. Sherr received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1978. He conducted his postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School under Nobel Laureate Baruj Benacerraf from 1978 to 1981. After rising to the rank of Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, Sherr joined Boston University School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Health. He holds joint appointments in the Department of Environmental Health and in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine within the University's School of Medicine. With an active program in basic immunology, Sherr is also a member of the Boston University Immunology Training Program. He has established a robust research program that combines immunology, toxicology, and cancer biology.

Specifically, his laboratory studies the role of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (an intracellular protein thatis activated by environmental pollutants such as dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons/PAH, and polychlorinated biphenyls/PCBs) in the death of immature B lymphocytes and in the aberrant regulation of breast cancer cell growth. In translational studies, Sherr's laboratory also is attempting to generate vaccines predicted to be effective against pathologic clones in primary amyloidosis and against several cancers expressing high levels of the AhR and/or AhR-regulated proteins.