Dr. Ahmed is a virologist and immunologist, and an internationally recognized expert on T cell survival, function and the development of immunological memory. He is a Director of the Emory Vaccine Center; Charles Howard Candler Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine. His work includes discoveries related to how immune memory cells are created, how long they survive and how factors such as IL-2 and IL-15 relate to these responses within different microenvironments within an organism and the relationship between chronic viral infection and ongoing immunity. His work impacts the development of therapeutics in infectious disease, particularly in the setting of viral infection and viral persistence to cancer and cancer immunology. Dr. Ahmed is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, has received numerous awards, including the William B. Coley Award in 2017 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Ahmed received his Ph.D. degree in microbiology from Harvard University. Before coming to Emory, he was a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine.