Personal profile

Biography

Professor Kim Good-Jacobson is a NHMRC Investigator 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 Immunity (2024) and Nature Immunology (2022).

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 ARC, MRFF, Cancer Institute NSW and Leukaemia Foundation of Australia and has held Bellberry-Viertel and NHMRC Career Development Fellowships.

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Research interests

B cell memory

Epigenomics

Supervision interests

Current graduate students (primary supervisor):

Alana Kirn

Clarissa Chakma

Completed students (primary supervisor):

Lucy Cooper

Yan Zhang

Liam Kealy 

Jack Polmear

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Research area keywords

  • Immunology
  • Infection
  • B cells
  • Immunity
  • Immune memory
  • Antibody

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or