For Delphine J. Lee, MD, PhD, and Ashraf S. Ibrahim, PhD, meaningful scientific discovery often begins where disciplines intersect. As co-directors of The Lundquist Institute’s Infectious Diseases and Immunology Innovation Hub, they are bringing together investigators whose expertise spans infectious disease, HIV immunology, dermatology, rheumatology, neuroimmunology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and oncology to name a few.
It is a combination Dr. Lee describes enthusiastically. The intention, she explained, is to connect researchers with different but complementary expertise and create opportunities for new ideas, projects, and scientific directions to emerge. In her words, bringing those strengths together can be a bit like “peanut butter and jelly”—each brings something different, but the combination can fuse something quite favorable and functional.
Dr. Lee’s own career reflects that interdisciplinary approach. An investigator in dermatology at The Lundquist Institute, her research bridges immunology, cancer biology, dermatology, autoimmune disease, and translational research. Dr. Ibrahim, also an investigator at The Lundquist Institute, focuses on understanding how pathogens cause disease and translating those discoveries into new approaches to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Together, their backgrounds reflect a central idea behind the hub: infection, immunity, and human disease are deeply connected. As Dr. Ibrahim noted, treatments for cancer and autoimmune disease can alter immune function and influence susceptibility to infection. Addressing complex biomedical problems therefore requires investigators to work across traditional specialties.
Drs. Lee and Ibrahim want to create opportunities for investigators to learn more about one another’s research, identify shared interests, and form teams around promising scientific questions. Their ultimate goal is translational: advancing discoveries toward new therapeutics, prevention strategies, diagnostics, and biomarkers that can improve human health.
Dr. Ibrahim envisions scientific forums, lectures, poster presentations, and focused retreats that make it easier to exchange ideas and move beyond traditional research silos. They also see value in giving early collaborations room to grow. Dr. Lee is excited about unique ways to spark new collaborations, including friendly competitions to secure seed funding that could help teams test early ideas and generate the preliminary data needed to move promising projects forward.
Both leaders are energized by what is still possible. Dr. Ibrahim has described the hub itself as an experiment: create the conditions for meaningful collaboration, see what emerges, measure what works, and refine the model along the way. With complementary expertise and a shared commitment to translational science, Drs. Lee and Ibrahim hope the hub will become a place where unexpected connections lead to meaningful discovery.