Background
Avery August was born in Belize City, Belize.
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Avery August
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Avery August was born in Belize City, Belize. August attended government primary schools, and subsequently attended Saint Michael"s College for Boys (as High Schools in Belize are called), where he earned a High School Diploma. Following one year at the Belize Technical College, he emigrated with his family to Los Angeles, California.
There he attended California State University, Los Angeles, where he earned a Bachelor of Surgery degree in Medical Technology.
While at California State University, he got involved in undergraduate research in the laboratory of Doctor Phoebe Dea, then Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at California State University (see Scientific Career below for details). This first exposure to research pushed him to attend graduate school at "s Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences in New York City.
There he worked at the Sloan Kettering Institute (an Institute within the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) with Immunologist Doctor Bo Dupont, and where he earned Doctor of Philosophy degree in Immunology. He then gained post-doctoral experience at The Rockefeller University, working with renowned virologist and National Academy of Science member, Doctor Hidesaburo Hanafusa.
Career
August first worked in the catalytic synthesis of fatty acids and other lipids as an undergraduate student in Professor Dea"s laboratory at California State University, Los Los Angeles This work resulted in the publication on methods to easily catalyze the insertion of deuterium into unsaturated fatty acids, which could then be used as probes of membrane structure.
Upon moving to Cornell University, Doctor August initiated work on his Doctor of Philosophy thesis, to understand the molecular basis of activation of T cells.
T cells are major players in regulating the development of an immune response. The importance of these cells is illustrated by the fact that the virus Human Immunodeficiency Virus infects helper T cells, and thus disables effective immunity against the virus, resulting in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. At Cornell, Doctor August worked with Doctor Bo Dupont, working on unraveling the molecular basis for T cell costimulation by the cell surface protein CD28.
This work resulted in 9 publications (see references at PubMed). This work also led to the production of his Doctor of Philosophy thesis entitled "On the molecular basis of the two signal hypothesis of T cell activation: Signaling by CD3 and CD28".
Following graduation, Doctor August joined the Laboratory of Molecular Oncology at Rockefeller University, headed by Doctor At The Rockefeller, Doctor August worked on a number of areas, including analysis of the BRCA1 oncogene that when mutated, results in much increased risk for breast cancer.
This work was the first to show that this protein could regulate the transcription of genes and could potentially regulate the development of Breast cancer in this fashion. He also continued working on analysis of the regulation of Tec family kinases, work which he had started as a Doctor of Philosophy student and was the first to show that this family of kinases are regulated by upstream signals from Src and PI3-kinase. This work had direct implications for manipulating T cell activation and thus the immune response.
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Born
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Nationality
Belizean