Prof Kim Jacobson (publishing as Kim Good-Jacobson) is a Bellberry-Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellow who studies the formation of immunity. Human health and longevity is dependent on the ability of the immune system to clear the multitude of different foreign pathogens encountered over the life of the host. Her research studies the ability of the immune system to clear pathogens and form immunity through production of B cell memory and antibody, exemplified by her recent work published in Nature Immunology (2022) and Cell Reports (2020).

Kim Good-Jacobson investigates chromatin and transcriptional modifications underlying diversification and selection of B cell fates during the formation of immunity. She completed her PhD at the Centenary and Garvan Institutes in 2007. She was awarded an Arthritis Australia AFA-ARA Heald Fellowship, followed by a CJ Martin Fellowship from the NHMRC to undertake postdoctoral training at Yale University, where she revealed a novel role for the inhibitory receptor PD-1 in humoral responses. She returned to Australia in 2010 and has since made key insights into how histone modifications regulate B cell memory, and the essential requirement for specific molecular factors in the establishment of long-lived humoral immunity in health and chronic disease.

She served as Treasurer for the Australian and New Zealand Society of Immunology and has written for The Conversation. She has also been the recipient of funding from the Cancer Institute NSW and Leukaemia Foundation of Australia.

Related Links:

• B Cells, Antibody, Memory Laboratory
• https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/jacobson-lab
• The Conversation: How HIV's evasion tactics could help fight the flu 
• https://theconversation.com/how-hivs-evasion-tactics-could-help-fight-the-flu-69278
• The Conversation: Explainer: How viruses can fool the immune system
• https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-viruses-can-fool-the-immune-system-43707
• The Conversation: Six Steps to Fairer Funding for Female Scientists
• https://theconversation.com/six-steps-to-fairer-funding-for-female-scientists-16895

Current graduate students (primary supervisor):

Liam Kealy 

Jack Polmear

Clarissa Chakma

Completed students (primary supervisor):

Lucy Cooper

Yan Zhang