Dr Ian Parish is a fundamental immunologist with internationally recognised expertise in the negative regulation of T cell function. He completed his PhD at the WEHI, during which he studied the cellular and molecular regulation of peripheral T cell tolerance. He then accepted a postdoctoral position at the Yale School of Medicine, where he focused on T cell differentiation during infection, and developed an interest in why T cell responses become blunted during chronic viral infection. After returning to Australia, he established an independent research program at the ANU aimed at deciphering the molecular pathways that limit T cell function.

He joined the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in 2018 and has since established a research team to continue and expand on this theme, with the goal of applying this knowledge to guide innovative immunotherapy approaches for the treatment of cancer. Since arriving at Peter Mac, he has secured over $3 million in research funding as a lead investigator through NHMRC, HFSP, The Volkswagen Foundation and industry support. His research has collectively attracted over 3000 citations from publications featured in high impact journals such as JCI, Nature Communications, PNAS, Immunity, Nature Medicine, Blood, JEM, Cell Reports and Cancer Discovery.