Shiv Pillai, MD, PhD

Harvard Medical School
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Shiv Pillai is a Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunology. He is the Program Director of an NIH Funded Autoimmune Center of Excellence at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Director of the Harvard Immunology PhD and Masters’ programs. Dr. Pillai is known for coining the term “surrogate light chains” for proteins that he and David Baltimore identified as part of a novel receptor, the pre-B receptor, which is crucial for early B cell development and his laboratory’s research also linked Btk, the gene product mutated in X-linked agammaglobulinemia, to the pre-B receptor and the B cell receptor. His group developed the concept of the follicular versus marginal zone B lymphoid cell-fate decision, has identified the transitional B cell stage where B cell tolerance breaks in common variable immunodeficiency, and identified a block in T follicular helper cell development in COVID-19 that prevents the formation of germinal centers. His laboratory actively studies the dysfunctional extra-follicular B cell response in humans and its links to distinct cytotoxic Granzyme B and non-cytotoxic inflammatory Granzyme K producing CD4+T cell subsets in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases that include IgG4-related disease, systemic sclerosis, common variable immunodeficiency, fibrosing mediastinitis and COVID-19.

Presentation(s):

• Mechanisms of IgG-Related Disease

  Sunday, October 26, 2025
  9:30 AM – 10:00 AM Central Time

  Disclosure(s): Paratus Sciences: Advisor or Review Panel Member (Terminated)