Adrian Hayday

Hayday began studying immunology as a postdoctoral researcher in 1982 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) supervised by Susumu Tonegawa,^[2][7] where he identified the molecular basis of oncogene activation in Burkitt's lymphoma. Thereafter, he first described the genes defining gamma-delta T cells, an evolutionarily conserved yet wholly unanticipated set of lymphocytes. At Yale University, King's College London School of Medicine and the Francis Crick Institute, Hayday established that gamma-delta T cells are distinct from other T cells, commonly monitoring body-surface integrity rather than specific infections. Their rapid responses to tissue dysregulation offer protection from carcinogenesis, underpinning Hayday's and others' ongoing initiatives to employ the cells for immunotherapy.^[8]

Hayday has received numerous awards, including the William Clyde DeVane Medal, Yale's highest honour for scholarship and teaching. He was elected to head the British Society for Immunology (2005–09), and has formally counselled King's Health Partners, the Pasteur Institute, Kyoto University, the Max Planck Institute, the Allen Institute, MedImmune, the National Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust, and Cancer Research UK whose science committee he chairs.^[1] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016.^[1] He is an honorary member of the British Society for Immunology.^[9]