History

Research and teaching in immunology and infectious diseases have been integral parts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since its foundation in 1916 by William Henry Welch.

The roots of the present department can be traced to the Department of Bacteriology, headed by Welch himself, to the nation's first separate Department of Immunology, also created by Welch, and to the Department of Medical Zoology, which has trained many of the country's leading investigators in parasitology and medical entomology.

In 1922, Charles Simon introduced the first course in virology in the School. In 1953, many of these elements were combined in a single Department of Pathobiology (i.e., the biology of disease) by the distinguished virologist, Frederik Bang. The department was renamed Immunology and Infectious Diseases in 1982 and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI) in 1994.

In 1996, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health named the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in honor of W. Harry Feinstone, ScD '39, a retired pharmaceutical researcher and executive from Memphis, Tenn.