Education
In 1993, Fremont received his Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry working in Ian Wilson’s laboratory at the University of California, San Diego.
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Daved Fremont
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He is currently director of the Computational and Molecular Biophysics Program. Fremont is also a principal investigator in the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Disease (CSGID) and his laboratory has deposited structures of proteins from several major human pathogens to the protein data bank (PDB). Here, he determined the first x-ray crystal structures of a major histocompatibility complex (Major histocompatibility complex) bound to specific peptides.
These structures of the H-2Kb molecule, published in Science in 1992, played a pivotal role in defining the molecular details of host discrimination of “self” versus “non-self”, and had been cited 847 times according to Google Scholar.
His work helped explain how a single Major histocompatibility complex class I molecule is able to bind a vast array of different antigen peptide sequences and established that Major histocompatibility complex class I molecules bind primarily to the backbone atoms of antigen peptides in a sequence-independent manner. Fremont continued his work in structural immunology as a post-doctoral fellow with Wayne Hendrickson at Columbia University and John Kappler at the National Jewish Center.
There he solved a number of Major histocompatibility complex structures, most notably that of murine H2-M, a chaperone involved in Major histocompatibility complex class I loading. In 1998, he joined Washington University in Saint Louis as an Assistant Professor where his research expanded to include viral immune evasion and antibody-mediated neutralization.
His laboratory has since established the structural basis for interactions between host cytokines and poxand herpesviruses decoy receptors and neutralization of West Nile Virus by therapeutic antibodies.
Fremont is now best known for his research on how the immune system recognizes viruses and the subversion mechanisms they deploy to avoid detection and clearance. On the personal side, Fremont is married and has a daughter. He enjoys playing Go and Poker.
In the latter, he is partial to seven card stud, especially the Chesterfield version, and does not prefer wild card games.
