Establishing the University of Minnesota’s Center for Immunology: an oral history

By Noah V. Gavil, MD, PhD^[1]
Interviews conducted March–April 2025 | Written June 2025

Interviewees: Marc Jenkins, PhD • Tucker LeBien, PhD • Chris Pennell, PhD • Kris Hogquist, PhD • Stephen Jameson, PhD • Yoji Shimizu, PhD • Bruce Blazar, MD • Leo Furcht, MD • Ashley Haase, MD

In the early 1990s, immunology research at the University of Minnesota was unorganized and decentralized. Many early-to-mid career immunology faculty were dispersed across siloed departments and relatively isolated laboratories. Despite the legacy of influential leaders such as Robert Good, John Najarian, and Fritz Bach, the University’s immunology program required resuscitation. Fortunately, the confluence of supportive leadership, an energized ad hoc group of immunology faculty, critical new faculty recruitments, and the serendipitous opening of new interdepartmental lab space laid the groundwork for one of the University’s most successful centers of research excellence, the Center for Immunology (CFI). 

The Legacy of Immunology at the University of Minnesota

The field of immunology has deep roots in Minnesota. After multiple failed attempts, Martin J. Synnott successfully convened and founded the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) on June 19, 1913, at the University of Minnesota during the annual American Medical Association meeting^[2]. AAI remains the largest association of immunologists in the world, with greater than 8,000 members. 

Perhaps the next most influential contribution of the University of Minnesota to immunology history was cultivating the career of Robert A. Good. In 1944, Good launched his career in immunology as a medical student, studying correlations between plasma cell expansion and infection. Good then became one of the first students at the University of Minnesota to complete a self-directed, combined MD-PhD program in 1947. In his own recounting, Good generously cites the influence of Dr. Irvine McQuarrie, who made a lasting impression on Good’s adoption of using “Experiments of Nature” to advance scientific and medical understanding^[3]. As a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota from 1950-1972, Good’s analyses of immunodeficiencies in humans and animal models led to major contributions in the field of clinical and basic immunology. Most notably were his study of lymphocytes, the function of the thymus, and the distinct thymus-dependent “T” and antibody-producing Bursa of Fabricius-derived “B” lymphocytes. He also played a leading role in the first bone marrow transplants in humans, establishing the University of Minnesota as an international pioneer in transplant medicine. In 1972, Good left Minnesota to spearhead a new bone marrow transplant program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City^[4]. Bruce Blazar, a pediatrician and transplant immunologist, began his pediatrics residency soon after Good’s departure and recalled that

“[Bob Good’s legacy] wasn't talked about a lot, but […] I'm sure it was known. I was really acutely aware of it because of what he did, which was amazing. I don't know how many people actually thought about it, but I did. And then over time I met him, and he was a phenomenal person. He had an encyclopedic memory, and he had really good intuitions. I used to read his notes when I was an intern. You could still see his notes. He made Saturday morning rounds, which I don't know how that persisted. But he also would call meetings at three or four in the morning. He left before I came.”^[5]

Bob Good’s expansive work in immunology and bone marrow transplantation extended to the Department of Surgery, which successfully recruited John Najarian, a pioneering organ transplant surgeon, in 1967. Najarian’s growing organ transplantation program and Good’s departure marked a new era in the University’s immunology research programs. 

After completing his PhD at Nebraska University, Tucker LeBien joined the University of Minnesota’s Bone Marrow Transplant Program in 1977 under the mentorship of the program’s director John Kersey, a former trainee of Bob Good. LeBien recalled that: 

“Immunology [at Minnesota] as a discipline had practitioners in, [the Departments of] Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Microbiology, Medicine, Pediatrics…But in the, let's say, late-70s, early to mid-80s, it was hardly a bastion of fundamental immunology. I mean, it was anything but. […] One of the things that was done to bolster immunology is that in 1980 or so, the chair of surgery at the time, John Najarian, and the chair of LMP, Ellis Benson, recruited Fritz Bach, who was a renowned immunologist from the University of Wisconsin. [He] brought with him a number of people and built the IRC, the Immunobiology Research Center. […] And they were very good, you know, Fritz is the godfather of the mixed lymphocyte reaction and its relevance, its utility in organ transplantation and bone marrow transplantation in particular.”^[6]

Between Najarian’s Department of Surgery and Bach’s IRC, transplantation was the dominant topic of immunology at the University in the 1970s -1980s. Blazar, a self-taught immunologist, remembered that, 

“Fritz Bach was really the immunology community at that time [when I was a fellow and early faculty member]. […] I just integrated myself into Fritz's area for the immunology. He'd have weekly speakers. It was amazing. He'd have very famous people weekly in the immunobiology research [center], IRC,[…] [in] a small library, we'd all crowd in there and I went every week. He had an amazing group of people.”^[4]

LeBien also recalled, 

“[…] a transplant conference every week at 4:30 in the Department of Surgery that, I mean, you attended that because many of the seminar themes were in immunology. And all the great transplant immunologists from the world came through that seminar series, including Peter Medawar in a wheelchair. That was a religious experience to see, I can tell you that.”^[5]

Despite the strength of Najarian and Bach’s research fiefdoms and the University’s notoriety as a nexus of transplantation research, resources for immunologists outside of Surgery and Bach’s IRC were inaccessible. LeBien reflected that 

“Fritz was a very dynamic personality who tended to be the center of gravity, and it was hard, if you weren't in that sphere, you were kind of on the outside looking in. […] we didn't have a broader institutional identity in fundamental immunology other than Fritz”^[7]

This consolidation of resources would turn strength into vulnerability as two pivotal events led to controversy, gutting the immunology programs at the University. However, from this low point emerged new opportunities that completely reshaped the immunology research landscape at Minnesota.

Catastrophe Breeds Opportunity: The Hiring of Matthew Mescher

Leo Furcht, a pathologist and researcher in the field of tumor microenvironments, became chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology in 1990. Furcht nicely summarized that,

“The circumstances were the following: We had one of the top transplant surgeons in the world, John Najarian, who was the head of Surgery. [And] prior to my being chair, the department chair [Ellis Benson], working with Najarian, hired a very prominent immunologist [Fritz Bach] from Madison [in 1979]. […] He left [in 1992] […] to set up a research institute somewhere [New England Deaconess Hospital and Harvard Medical School]. I was a new department head at the time, and I sort of looked around and said, transplant was huge for us. It still is. And I went to the dean and said, “look, this guy left. Immunology is too important for us not to have, strength in it. So I'd like to start, with your support, an immunology center.”^[8]

Ashley Haase, an infectious disease physician and virologist, became chair of the Department of Microbiology in 1984 after a productive tenure at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Reflecting on this tumultuous period, Dr. Haase described the nature of building research enterprises around singular individuals.

“That [fiefdom] model works, but it has limits related to the individual. And then once they sort of peak and plateau, they leave or get thrown out […] I think [this older] Minnesota model shows both its strengths and limits because [Bob] Good leaves. [Fritz] Bach is not the hoped-for, expected salvation center of gravity. And he leaves. So when you're putting all your eggs, or most of your eggs in one basket, you're not building a program. You're building fiefdoms and stuff like that. What you want are some really high-performing individuals. You want a lot of them. Any model will work as long as it succeeds in doing that.”^[9]

In his efforts to expand the scope of his own department, Dr. Haase hired Marc Jenkins in 1988. After graduate training at Northwestern University and postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jenkins returned to his home state to launch his independent faculty career as an immunologist. Recounting his early days on faculty and early friendship with Tucker LeBien, Jenkins remembered that,

“no one in the Department [of Microbiology] was working on T cells… so I was kind of alone […] But Tucker [LeBien] was here, and Tucker was very hungry, and Tucker just had this bigger than a department personality. So I can't remember exactly how I latched on to Tucker, but I did.”^[10]

Jenkins went on to describe LeBien’s foresight into the state of immunology research at the University, saying that,

“[Tucker] had this bigger interest in immunology and realized that we were at a crisis point because […] all the resources the University had for growing immunology had gone into Fritz's program, and Fritz was interested in growing Fritz. [So when] Fritz was going […] that pool of resources […] could still be there for someone to come in and […] actually be a program builder.”^[9]

At the behest of Dr. Furcht, the Dean of the Medical School took the next steps to gather the relevant department chairs of Surgery, Medicine, Pediatrics, Microbiology, and Lab Medicine and Pathology (LMP). Furcht and LeBien recalled those early meetings and how LMP took the lead, 

(Furcht) “And so we had a meeting, David Brown was the dean then. He was a good guy. And what I had suggested to the group was the concept that each department put in two positions going forward. […] But then a crisis occurred at the school. 

Najarian and whatever […] There was a problem with […] making ALG [Anti-lymphocyte Globulin] […] They had good data that the survival was better in [transplant] patients that got that stuff. So they basically started distributing [ALG] to other institutions and it made a lot of money. […] Everybody, you know, the regents, president, everybody knew all about this. […] Well, it turns out they never fully completed getting the FDA approval […] So what happened because of this controversy and Najarian was one of the point people, [although] the irony there is [that] in all the analyses that were done, nothing [Najarian did] was done wrong. […] but anyway, the bottom fell out of the energy to [invest in immunology]. […] So people wanted to just sit tight. It was a kind of paralysis, like trying to deal with [something] when you don't know what's going on. It's an omnipresent problem. But I said, ‘well, we're going to just plunge forward and go do this.’ So we had a search committee for the director [of a new immunology program], and I said, ‘we'll put up a number of positions,’ LMP alone.”^[11]

(LeBien) “I remember [a] meeting that I had with Dean Brown and the five chairs of these departments […] And it became pretty clear right up front that four of them […] were willing to be emotionally supportive but financially minimalistic, except for Leo Furcht. And he, with no question, he was willing to step up and make an investment […] in immunology and recruiting a high-level immunologist. So we had a search.”^[12]

The search for Fritz Bach’s replacement involved multiple early-to-mid career faculty members, including LeBien, Jenkins, Blazar, and Chris Pennell, who was also recruited by John Kersey in the early 1990s as an immunologist in the Bone Marrow Transplant program. Ultimately, the decision was made to hire Matthew Mescher, who was then an accomplished immunologist at the Molecular Biology Institute at La Jolla, California. Members of the search committee remember varying aspects of the process.

(Blazar) “I think the person that we went for was Kim Bottomly, [laughs] I'm pretty sure […] And then trying to get Charlie [Janeway] as a spousal recruitment. That didn't work. And then Matt…I don't remember if Matt had applied at that time or just after that, but he was clearly really good. I think there was a large consensus.”^[13]

(Pennell) “I remember asking Matt, ‘why would you leave La Jolla?’ And he said, ‘I was sitting out watching the ocean one day and I thought I could do this for like the next 40 or 50 years [laugher] just drinking a beer. Do I want to do that? No! I want to do more with my career.’ So he was afraid he’d just fade into La La Land if you will and he said that that was one of the reasons why he wanted to move here”^[14]

(Shimizu) “So the other thing that’s interesting about Matt, which I don't know if other people told you about. Matt and Harry Orr [Professor in Lab Medicine and Pathology] were in Jack Strominger's lab [at Harvard University] when they were both early phase trainees. They were lifelong friends since the time that they were both in Jack's lab. So that connection here also probably drew Matt to Minnesota.”^[15]

(Jenkins) “When Matt got here [for his interview], he just kind of blew us away with that mixture of calm demeanor, common sense. Yet, you know, he was publishing a lot of high-profile papers then. And he was a T cell immunologist. And, he could clearly articulate his willingness […] to try to build a program here in immunology.”^[16]

(Furcht) “Anyway, I thought [Matt] was the guy.”^[17]

With the anticipation of Mescher’s arrival and a supportive leadership in the form of Dean Brown and Leo Furcht, LeBien and Jenkins gathered an ad hoc group of immunologists at the University’s Campus Club. The first meeting took place on October 23^rd, 1993, with five initial attendees—Tucker LeBien, Marc Jenkins, Bruce Blazar, Chris Pennell, Dan Mueller, and Ron Jemmerson. The check came out to “$16.95 per immunologist”.^[18] Jenkins pointed to LeBien as the initial leading voice.

(Jenkins) “Those first meetings were just the mid-career people in immunology here. And there just weren't that many people who had the bandwidth and the interest to do this. […] I recall Tucker having that vision that we have to get organized. ‘We don't have a department.’ ‘We have these two different graduate programs competing with each other [reference to the Microbiology and Pathobiology graduate programs], but neither of them have the name ‘immunology’.’ ‘We don't have contiguous lab space.’ ‘We're all in five different departments or scattered all over the campus.’ ‘We have to get organized.’ […] I hear Tucker's voice in my head and that came from him.”^[19]

LeBien reflected on his own motivations to lead, stating that,

“For whatever the reason, I had a passion for my own research […] but it wasn't completely all-consuming. And I had other interests in strengthening an area that […] I was very fond of. And [immunology] had, of course, a much deeper history when Bob Good was here. […] Many people don't know that the seminal experiments in the chicken, and some in the mouse that elucidated the two lineages of T and B cells were done in the Variety Club Heart Hospital in 1966/67 that still sits on the [Mississippi] river. […] So I mean, there was a history here of incredible immunology discovery. […] [Also] we could see the identity of immunology was going to be linked not only to our research credentials, but how much effort we made to develop it as an institutional identity, which means that you had to spend time talking to quite a number of people.”^[20]

Pennell also recounted Tucker’s leadership and community-building intuition, stating that,

“I mean if you know Tucker… Tucker knows everybody right? And so he […] had at the time and still has, a very strong institutional knowledge and history of the place and he knows everybody. So as the number of immunologists started to grow, Tucker saw the utility in pulling us together. […] Tucker just said, ‘you know we should get together and see if we can come up with some sort of cohesive group.’ And so he was the driving force initially and then of course Marc [Jenkins] was on board because it made a lot of sense to get together.”^[21]

LeBien’s summary of that first meeting reveals an early blueprint for things to come. First, LeBien recounted the existing immunology infrastructure at the time, including Mescher’s chair position in the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology, graduate school curriculum in immunology led in part by Jenkins, Jemmerson, and Pennell, and LeBien’s Immunology Training Grant from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (T32AI007313), which was first awarded in 1989. LeBien also referenced three suggestions: 1) establishing an informal work-in-progress seminar series for faculty and trainees in immunology, 2) a formalized, external invited immunology speaker series, and 3) a titled identity for the group. LeBien proposed “Minnesota Immunology Research Consortium (MERC),” inviting members to “please crush this suggestion to dust if you desire.”^[22]

Matt Mescher formally joined this nascent group of immunology faculty in November 1993, marking a turning point as the brainstorming of ideas solidified into clarified goals. Under Furcht’s departmental support and backed by the Dean of the Medical School, the “Immunology Working Group” (IWG, not MERC) was named as Mescher took the helm with LeBien and Jenkins as co-leaders. An incredible flurry of activity followed from 1994 to 1995. Three early-career immunologists were recruited through the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology, an interdisciplinary pilot grant was submitted to the Graduate School to support a “Center for Immunology,”^[23] and a formal proposal was submitted to develop a combine graduate program that recognizes “Immunology” as an equal partner with “Microbiology” and “Pathobiology.”^[24]

Jenkins recalled this exciting yet busy time of activity. He stated,

“Well, I just remember me and Matt and Tucker meeting all the time, working very, very closely together to try to achieve all these goals. And we almost never disagreed. We had a common vision that helped us. So we didn't have some parting philosophical differences that created problems. We didn't have any personality differences, and I think that was a good. That was lucky. And that let us move very quickly in ways. […] Because it was very clear that, [even though] there was an ‘Immunology Working Group,’ people had various levels of commitment to the process and capacities to give. So it was going to be me and Matt and Tucker. And then that very small group, we could make decisions quickly.”^[25]

Expanding the Team: Recruiting Yoji Shimizu, Kris Hogquist, and Steve Jameson

Yoji Shimizu was the first addition to the IWG after Mescher’s arrival. At the time, Shimizu was an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, having joined the faculty in 1991. Extending his postdoctoral work with Steve Shaw at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Shimizu was studying T cell adhesion pathways that were independent from the T cell receptor. While he had several connections to the University of Minnesota, having collaborated with Harry Orr during his PhD thesis work at the University of Wisconsin and overlapped with both Marc Jenkins and Dan Mueller during their postdocs at the National Institutes of Health, Shimizu joked that,

“I've always told people, like, career advice 101 is not to move your lab three and a half years after you start, that's just not a good thing, right?”^[26]

Despite his own advice, Shimizu’s recruitment to Minnesota began with a coincidental association at a study section. 

(Shimizu) “So I had this funding [an R29 junior faculty grant], and then, I don't know, this chair of the study section wanted me to serve on this study section […] It was a study section called “Pathobiochemistry.” […] So for whatever reason, I was in the [non-immunology] study section, and […] another member was Leo. Leo Furcht. […] So that was my first interaction with Leo. And I think at one of those study section meetings, he was like, ‘we were really interested in you.’ ‘I talked to Harry [Orr] about you,’ and ‘Harry told me that you had already taken this position at Michigan, so I didn't bother to follow up’ and blah, b- blah, b-blah. But a couple of study section meetings later, he was like, ‘we just hired this senior person, an immunologist, and we have all these plans for immunology. So why don't you just come on out and give a talk?’”^[25]

(Furcht) “I had seen Yoji earlier in his career. He ad hoc'd on the study section I was on. And he was an Assistant Professor at Michigan at the time. I said, ‘God, this is one of the smartest young guys I've ever seen.’ You know, his analytical assessment of grants and things he raised. I said, ‘this is a guy to remember.’ […] So I went on and hired him. And one of his references, he had trained at NIH at the time. And the director of whatever it was, said ‘he's the most impressive postdoc he's ever had.’”^[27]

Shimizu cites a reunion with Harry Orr and the opportunity to talk with Mescher about their shared research interests as his initial motivations to visit Minnesota, but Mescher, LeBien, and Furcht left an impression. Shimizu recalled,

“The three people that I remember the most from those early interactions or experiences [visiting] Minnesota were Leo [Furcht], Matt [Mescher], and Tucker [LeBien]. Those were the three. Primarily because they were all in the Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology, so this was all being done through Lab Medicine. So I don't recall actually interacting much with Marc [Jenkins] or Dan [Mueller] at the time I came out here for those visits, because it was all LMP-focused. And, all three of them are, in their own unique ways, really memorable people when you first meet them. So, Leo was a very active scientist at the time; he was serving on the study section with me, and he is a very gregarious and social person. Matt was a little quieter, but in his own way, was this really unique person to interact with. And Tucker is just, you know…Tucker is Tucker. He's such an enthusiastic kind of person.”^[28]

So against his own advice and despite exasperations from colleagues at Michigan, Shimizu took a chance on Minnesota. He reflected on that decision, stating

“There was the stuff with Najarian and also the stuff with [selling] the [University] hospital [to a private company, Fairview]. And that was right around the time that I was thinking about moving. So there was nothing that would suggest that this would be a good idea. [laughs] But I don't know. I knew of Marc's work. I knew of Dan [Mueller]'s work. I knew Matt. I got to know Tucker really well. I just had a lot of faith in those individuals. That was like, ‘I want to be in an environment where I can get to work with people like that.’ [...] And, you know, they all said, ‘we're here to build an immunology group.’ And I wanted to be part of that, I think, more than anything else.”^[27]

On a personal note, Shimizu also noted that his wife preferred the prospect of sunny and cold winters of Minneapolis over the cloudy and cold winters of Ann Arbor.

In addition to Shimizu, an opportunity arose with the recruitment of Kris Hogquist and Steve Jameson, both postdoctoral fellows in Mike Bevan’s lab at the University of Washington. As personal and professional partners, Hogquist and Jameson recall a country-wide road trip between 1994 and 1995, visiting universities from Massachusetts to Texas and finally Minnesota, where Kris had been born and raised.^[29]

(Hogquist) “We [Steve and I] were postdocs in Seattle together in Mike Bevan's lab, and a few years into our postdocs, we got a call saying “the University of Minnesota is starting a Center for Immunology. Would you be interested in joining?” […] [It was] the last job [interview we did] and the lowest offer. [laughs] And it was absolutely the right choice for us.”^[30]

(Jameson) “[I remember] talking to Matt Mescher about the newly envisaged Center for Immunology at the University of Minnesota seemed like a great opportunity. […] Choosing [Minnesota] was probably just the great colleagues that we already knew. I'd known Matt Mescher a little bit when he was at the Molecular Biology Institute down in San Diego when I was at Scripps, so we'd meet each other at conferences and seminars. Obviously, Marc and Dan and this great storied group already here with a connection to Minnesota. It felt very natural, and I don't think we ever regretted it. So it was the right choice.”^[29]

With Shimizu, Hogquist, and Jameson, the IWG was growing thanks to the support of Furcht’s Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology and Mescher’s early leadership. Various members cited this early support as a critical foundation for the burgeoning immunology community. 

(Pennell) “I have to say though that [Leo Furcht] was instrumental in getting the immunology group up because Matt was a member of Lab Medicine of Pathology as well. And then you know Yoji [Shimizu] came in and Steve [Jameson] and Kris [Hogquist]. So without Leo we wouldn't have had this. Because […] it's a Center right. So you can't have faculty housed there. There needed to be a home. So LMP was like the nucleation site and there were a number of other departments that have come in. But without a nucleation site then the aggregate wouldn't have grown. So how's that for an analogy [laughs].”^[31]

(Shimizu) “[…] luckily we had a very supportive chair in Leo [Furcht] that was really critical in those early days. So he was really essential to that kind of the growth of the CFI [Center for Immunology]. I think he was committed to that. That's why he recruited Matt and wanted this to happen. But without him I don't really know how successful it would have been. […] Because I know from my perspective it really comes down to Matt. I don't think any of this would have happened without Matt to be honest with you. Tucker was already here, Marc was here, Dan was here. It was really Matt's recruitment that was pivotal.”^[32]

The First Grant: “The Center for Immunology” is born

The larger vision for immunology at the University of Minnesota expanded well beyond the recruitment of a few faculty in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. By the end of 1994, Mescher, LeBien, and Jenkins had identified 25 IWG members that spanned 13 departments, 7 colleges, and 3 campuses (Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth). To build a broader community, additional resources were required. Specifically, a mechanism in the Graduate School offered pilot funding for faculty-initiated efforts through the “Interdisciplinary and Postbaccalaureate Education Program”. The initial grant application submitted in December 1994 formally proposed the formation of a “Center for Immunology” at the University of Minnesota, which was built on graduate programming, postdoctoral training, and faculty recruitment.^[33] Receiving support from deans and department chairs, the Center for Immunology (CFI) received its first recognition and $50,000/year pilot grant in May 1995. Combined with support from LeBien’s Immunology Training Grant, the CFI continued its external speaker series, which launched in October 1994 with Craig Thompson^[34], and scheduled its first CFI retreat for September 1995, which was held at the Riverwood Conference Center, Monticello, MN^[35]. With reference to the external speaker program, Shimizu emphasized that,

“I know you may not think about it that much, but the CFI has always been insistent on bringing in external speakers. […] The immunology speaker program in [the graduate program], as well as the Blumenthal lecture, were really important in keeping Minnesota on the minds of other immunologists. And it's interesting because if you look at some of the other speaker programs here at the University and other departments, it's a mix of internal and external people, typically. But the CFI has intentionally said, ‘we're going to find the resources to make sure that the people who speak at our invited seminar speaker are external people, not internal people.’ […] that focus on engaging with the external immunology community in that way has helped with building the reputation of the CFI, I think, more than anything else.”^[36]

Of MIMP and MICaB: Developing partnerships for an Immunology graduate program

There was no graduate program in immunology at the University of Minnesota until members of the Center for Immunology paved the way. Prior to 1995/1996, graduate courses in immunology had been developed for the Microbiology and Pathobiology doctoral graduate programs at the University, but were largely invisible as a graduate training opportunity. In the 1980s, larger biomedical sciences umbrella graduate programs rose in popularity across the country. These programs allowed prospective students to apply to a single program that would then direct students into the various biomedical research subspecialties. Dr. Haase explored the possibility of adopting such a structure at Minnesota but was rebuffed by his fellow department chairs of the Basic Science Council. As an alternative approach, Dr. Haase proposed a pilot program that would combine two programs, Microbiology and Pathobiology, with the goal of expanding opportunities for prospective students and faculty alike. This proposal also opened the door for the coalescing group of Minnesota immunologists.^[37]

As the prominence of the field of immunology expanded, various efforts were made to indicate how prospective students could study the field within existing programs or through a minor focus (e.g. psychoneuroimmunology). However, with the establishment of the IWG and then CFI, immunologists at the University advocated more strongly for “top-billing” recognition. Multiple faculty members recalled tensions around the proposal to combine the “Microbiology” and “Pathobiology” graduate programs with the addition of “Immunology” as the third partner.

(Jenkins) “[The] immunologists [were] fomenting unrest in these graduate programs to cause a merger of Pathobiology and Microbiology [graduate programs]. […] I think the people doing cancer biology and extracellular matrix research were fine with the Pathobiology graduate program. The microbiologists were probably fine with the Microbiology graduate program. So the status quo was okay for them, but it wasn't for us [immunologists]. So we were the ones really advocating for it… a merger.”^[38]

(Pennell) “[…] pulling the two programs together was problematic mainly because of the microbiology part. They were recalcitrant, but they all respected Marc [Jenkins]. And so Marc was the first DGS [Director of Graduate Studies] of the nascent MIMP program. Without him it would have been really difficult because Matt was an unknown, the rest of us were enemies [laughter], but Marc was one of theirs and he had Ashley [Haase]'s backing. So Marc was the first DGS and he did a great job in it and it went from there…”^[39]

(Shimizu) “I think MICaB [originally MIMP] is one of the few examples here at this institution where actually two [PhD] programs agreed to fuse and create a new identity. I'm struggling to find another example where that has happened successfully here, particularly in the medical school. […] For some reason, Microbiology and Lab Medicine were okay with us fusing and adding a third component. Very unusual, and I think part of that was really driven by Marc's influence in [the Dept of] Microbiology, and I think probably Jim McCarthy and other people within [Dept of] Lab Medicine [and Pathology], who I think realized that they could not continue to be sustainable as a freestanding graduate program. […] Marc and other people within Micro were pretty persuasive in saying, ‘this is a win-win for everybody, right?’ The program gets a little bigger, it gets maybe a little bit more prestigious in reputation, and we add this third component in “Immunology” because there's this big investment in immunology, and so everybody hopefully comes out better.”^[40]

(LeBien) “We were... really committed to establishing a PhD program that had “immunology” in the name, […]  and this turned out to be uh... quite contentious. Let's just say that I had some knockdown battles with some individuals about this but eventually we prevailed... and “Microbiology, Immunology…” and “…Pathobiology” was added and then of course it changed to MICaB [Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology].”^[41]

(Jenkins) “You're basically only as good as your graduate students. And so we realized we have to build a reputation in immunology that lets us recruit good graduate students. So it worked.”^[37]

As Jenkins alluded to, graduate students, specifically “good” graduate students, were major drivers of research productivity and contributed to a reinforcing cycle of success and a growing reputation. Shimizu and Pennell both expanded on the positive feedback between the success of the Center for Immunology faculty and the MICaB graduate program.

(Pennell) “The other advantage of having such a strong [faculty] group is the quality of students […] So the students that have applied, many of them are now pretty accomplished and it's great to have that network. That wouldn't have happened without the Center for Immunology. […] I think one of the best things from the center was the quality of the students that we got in. […] I was DGS [Director of Gradaute Studies] and CGS [Council of Graduate Studies] for a while. The quality of the students is phenomenal. And so […] [the students] really drove the research, […] One of the biggest advantages of this program was that we were able to attract really bright, really driven, but not in a pathological way, [laguther] individuals. And that constant influx of enthusiasm and drive really diffused throughout the entire program.”^[42]

(Shimizu) “The identity of immunology at Minnesota [and the CFI] for people who are not at the University of Minnesota is really tied into MICaB in a really significant way. And I think there are two reasons for that. 1) is the identity for a graduate student to do PhD training in immunology is tied through the visibility of MICaB externally to prospective students. And I'm struck by how many times I have heard from applicants, not only to MICaB but also to the MSTP [MD-PhD Program], who've come here and said, my mentor said “you have to apply to Minnesota because of all the great immunology work that's happening there.” […] So I think part of that legacy of that early work and making the CFI more visible nationally among people.”^[43]

Proximity rules: the importance of space

(Jameson) “If we go past the time of [Kris and I] arriving [at Minnesota], when we started out, we were in this windowless lab in PWB, Phillips Wangensteen [Building], with orange doors and all kinds of stuff. And then progressively, we went into better and better spaces. And probably other people have mentioned this, but it seemed like a turning point for how the Center for Immunology kind of coalesced was the move to Nils Hasselmo Hall. […] we were near Yoji and to Matt, in PWB, but Marc, and Dan, [were in] different places, […] so [the move into NHH] gave us an opportunity to actually be in that same zip code as the other immunologists.”^[44]

Between 1990 and 2009, laboratory space on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus changed in two critical ways. First, several brand-new research and laboratory buildings were built, and second, the allocation of new laboratory space was often distributed thematically to nascent centers and institutes. This was a major departure from departmentally organized space, which had previously led to the dispersed nature of immunology faculty across campus. Beginning in 1991 with the establishment of the University’s Cancer Center, Dean David Brown and the newly minted Cancer Center Director John Kersey successfully fundraised ~$32 million in philanthropy, enabling the construction of the Masonic Cancer Research Building (MCRB). Around the same time, Dean Brown identified a mechanism through the U.S. Department of Defense to apply for seed money that would support additional research facilities. A successful application for $10 million, combined with the support of then university president Nils Hasselmo and the Minnesota legislature, facilitated the construction of a Basic Sciences and Biomedical Engineering Building (later named Nils Hasselmo Hall, a.k.a. NHH).^[45]  The completion of MCRB in 1996 and NHH in 1997 marked a turning point in CFI’s history, providing a physical coalescence for transplant and fundamental immunologists, respectively. However, the separation of the two groups between MCRB and NHH would have long-lasting implications.

The preparation and move into NHH was a boon for the fundamental immunologists in the CFI. Serving on the NHH building planning committee, Marc Jenkins and Yoji Shimizu, along with LeBien’s advocacy, secured five thousand square feet of lab space for eight CFI investigators. Of the original twenty-five CFI members, the following labs made the move into the new space: Mescher, Jenkins, Shimizu, Jameson, Hogquist, Dan Mueller, and Tim Behrens. LeBien described the move as “time zero” for the CFI, and other investigators unanimously describe the move to NHH as a launching point for a more communal, collaborative research group.

(Jenkins) “[The move to NHH was] just incredibly exciting. Because that space was designed in this open floor plan. It was one of the first open floor [plan lab spaces]. So there was a lot of activity going on, and […] reagent sharing, […] the magic fridge phenomena. […] Of course everyone was working in the mouse. Everyone had a lot of interesting mouse strains, and so [there was] a lot of sharing of technology. It just was so alive […]”^[46]

(Jameson) “Open [floor] plan labs, which was kind of a new thing instead of having big divides between them. So, lots more free exchange of ideas and reagents and things. I think that really set CFI off on that trajectory of people being very collaborative in an instinctive way, which is not true of a lot of institutions. There's not that same kind of automatic expectation that they'll be part of a team.”^[47]

(Hogquist) “[The move to NHH] led to a lot better formalized group meetings, more regular ones, because we had a conference room right on the same floor everybody was on. And all of our offices were clustered together. So […] the faculty saw each other a lot more often, and then our lab people were interacting with each other a lot more often.”^[46]

As Jenkins put it, “the initial organizational work set the stage for a subset of people getting together in one place and that group doing really well. And then success breeds success, and once you start to build a reputation, it's like a magnet for good stuff.”^[45]  After the move to NHH, graduate students from the newly launched MIMP program began joining CFI labs, and additional hires through the department of LMP brought in new faculty members like Mike Farrar and Dan Kaplan. The CFI grew and earned recognition from the medical school as a growing success.

Many of the clinical transplant immunologists also experienced success and growth, as Kersey and LeBien were awarded an NIH cancer center grant, naming the University of Minnesota an NCI Designated Cancer Center in 1998. Despite the success of CFI members, the physical separation of the transplant and fundamental immunologists created a long-lasting schism with two distinct communities. As Pennell put it, “the problem we’ve never been able to overcome is proximity.” While MCRB and NHH were relatively close on campus, the fundamental immunologists made a second move to the newly built Biomedical Discovery District and Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building (WMBB) in 2009, which was now a mile from the node of transplant immunologists. Pennel said, “It's been a shame because I think there could have been more synergy had the two groups been more tightly enmeshed. And the way to do that is proximity.”^[48]  In addition to proximity, other historical elements led to differences in scientific focus. Remnants of more departmentally defined goals and interests had long-lasting impacts. Blazar remarked that his own “clinical outcomes” research contrasts with the fundamental immunologists who studied more “fine specificities”. While they used comparable technologies, Blazar said, “We don't publish in the same journals—occasionally people do, but not often. Just a different kind of audience. It doesn't matter if we use whatever technology […] It's just a different mindset.”^[49] 

The co-localization of immunologists, regardless of home department, was a novel recipe that galvanized immunology at the University of Minnesota. From the departmental perspective, Dr. Haase expressed concerns about this balkanization of research communities. The bacteriologists and immunologists were now separated, and the mechanisms that allow cross-disciplinary interactions were limited. Over time, some of the barriers have been lowered through targeted faculty recruitments and expansion of the Biomedical Discovery District (many members of the Department of Microbiology moved in 2014 to the Microbiology Research Facility, which neighbors WMBB).^[50] Dr. Haase described his perspective on this phenomenon: “Once you put the disciplines apart, they cannot see anything else except themselves. They can't see anything else as important. […] once you enshrine [a discipline] in a physical entity or some physical separation or some institutional entity, you've created a roadblock basically to something different. […] The more resources you put into one entity versus another means somebody wins and somebody loses.”^[51]

Questions of administrative structure: 

Centers vs. Departments and the external review of 2014

The founding of the CFI relied on efforts from all levels of administration and was ultimately ferried forward by critical recruitments, faculty-led organizing, and the availability of new lab space. The future and continued growth of the CFI similarly depended on new recruitments and additional lab space, but the CFI as a “center” was dependent on administrative partners at the departmental and dean level. As founding CFI director, Matt Mescher established that lab space assigned to the CFI was under the control of the CFI, not the departments. As Jenkins described, having control of CFI-designated lab space was “the main power that CFI had because we had no tenure-granting authority, and we weren't getting indirect cost-dollar recovery (ICR) [from grants]. We couldn't generate our own start-up packages. We had to partner with departments [to recruit new faculty].”^[52] Shimizu echoed, stating that “the only carrot we had is that you could be part of our group, our space. That's a big carrot but it’s the only carrot we actually had… and that assumed that we had space.” During the first 10-years of the CFI, new faculty recruitments were largely supported by LMP, which provided CFI a large degree of autonomy. However, Jenkins believed that the CFI was “always second on the agenda, behind the departments’ agendas, and we had to find a department head who was willing […]” He continued, expressing that departmental partnerships became easier as the reputation of the center grew, but maintained that the lack of resources and authority to run their own faculty searches held the CFI “back to some degree.”^[53] This status quo of dependency on departments for faculty recruitment was later challenged with a bold proposal.

The Center for Immunology at the University of Minnesota underwent an external review in March 2014 by three prominent immunologists, Wayne Yokoyama, MD, Joan Goverman, PhD, and Dennis Metzger, PhD. Recognizing the CFI as both a locally and internationally regarded center of exceptional immunology research, the external review board recommended further University-level investment in the CFI’s future, with concerns that growth had plateaued. In the final report, the review board summarized, 

“The major obstacle for CFI to overcome in meeting external challenges and opportunities is its current structure within the University of Minnesota Medical School. CFI controls space for its core faculty but […] Faculty recruitment and promotions are achieved only in collaboration with “home” departments, which provide start-up packages and salaries, but on an ad hoc basis. CFI has no dedicated financial resources or return of indirect costs to use for faculty recruitment. The absence of significant resources prevents the CFI from developing its own vision for the future. This was viewed by the Review Committee to be an issue of primary importance.”^[54]

To address this issue, the review board suggested that the “Center” for Immunology to be converted into a “Department” of Immunology. This was controversial, and ultimately, an agreement was reached to maintain the “Center” structure but also expand the scope of the Department of Microbiology, renaming it the “Department of Microbiology and Immunology” in 2015, which did provide a mechanism for some immunology-specific hiring.^[55]

The perceived appeal of creating a “Department of Immunology” focused on the power to independently recruit faculty and the potential to add stability to the now robust immunology community at Minnesota. As Jenkins described, “the departments are more stable. They're harder to create, they're harder to dissipate, and they can do their own recruiting.”^[56] Others also commented on more financial autonomy with “fewer people between you and the ultimate source of money” through a departmental structure.^[57],[58] Jenkins also reflected on the unique challenges of building a department around immunology as a discipline, noting how other departments in the medical school often rely on clinical revenue to support their development.

“Matt always brought this up. Immunology suffers when we don't have our signature disease. You know, […] there are so many different -itises that no clinical entity can claim us. And that has created […] a challenge for making a Department of Immunology, even though it is a discipline with textbooks and fundamental principles. So if I was starting over, I think because [the University of Minnesota] is a department based institution, immunology would do better here as a department.”^[55]

Despite these possible advantages, counterarguments arose, and the benefits of the “center” model were highlighted. First, two department heads, Ashley Haase of Microbiology and Leo Furcht of LMP, recommended against the formation of a Department of Immunology. At first glance, these two departments had the most to lose, having recruited many of the core CFI members and receiving substantial ICR from these successful faculty. However, both chairs candidly reflected on this proposal, citing risks to the immunology research enterprise itself. Speaking to the limited financial state of the University at the time, Dr. Haase noted that, 

“The resources would not have been a zero-sum game. They would probably have come from the departments, parental departments. And then there would be this constant conflict of getting enough resources for immunology to grow at that time.”^[59]

Dr. Furcht similarly cited the lack of money available to invest in departments, describing how interdisciplinary centers and institutes were and continued to be the targets of new research initiatives.

“There's been a massive proliferation of centers and institutes, they're everywhere, but at the time [early-1990s], there was not that many. So [the CFI] was new stuff. But as one was seeing at that time, advances could be made by collaborating with scientists who were doing different things and asking different questions. That's where huge breakthroughs occurred. […] It turned out that's where the action was, what the deans wanted to foster, and so new money wasn't going to departments, it was going to centers. […] I think it's been a wonderful development for science and obviously the institutions to have these centers […] I think these have been very powerful, and I see no end in sight.”^[60]

Dr. Haase similarly echoed the interdisciplinary advantages of centers and noted the risks of creating departmental boundaries versus instruments for synergy.

“[…] the Center of Immunology now, with its 100-plus faculty, the richness of its opportunities, the ability to actually use the breadth of those interests and expertise, they're in far better shape. Not as a department, but as an entity. […] So in my view, and Leo's and others, it would have immeasurably increased the problem we have of the balkanization and separation of the disciplines, so nobody's advantaged particularly. […] I am persuaded that it is better to have immunology and microbiology under one conceptual roof than it is to have them separate. They both prosper from that in a way that they would not.”^[58]

CFI faculty also expressed hesitation around the “department” structure, pointing to benefits in the “center” model that allow flexibility and breadth. 

(Pennell) “I think it's more egalitarian, this Center for Immunology. […] [The] Center for Immunology […] [has] a kind of a distributed organizational system where even though there's a director, the director really listens to the people underneath them and you go from there. With a department, it's more like a monarchy in some ways, where you can make suggestions, but if you're not in the king's favor, you might not get what you want. […] If it was a department, there may have been more barriers. It may have been more siloed, where the center was more open and almost amorphous if you will. […] So, subconsciously, maybe that made it more attractive to me.”^[61]

(Jameson) ““[…] it feels like the center structure has served us well. It's meant that we all have our departmental affiliations. We have colleagues in different departments, and they can bring their expertise. I might not know everybody who's in, the Department of Medicine or something like that, but then those folks will be able to say, “oh, there's somebody doing that here.” So you get the benefits of all the other departments, which you probably wouldn't have got if we’re all pushed into the same department.”^[62]

(Hogquist) “We kind of forget that being a center allows us to leave [behind] negative things we don't want either. You know, like a department that hires a faculty member who isn't successful, that's a very challenging situation ultimately, and painful. And for a center, we've had faculty who, for whatever reason, haven't been successful. They just get absorbed back into their departments and they're no longer in the center. So our record of funding looks exceptional, but it's because we're selective.”^[61]

Faculty also noted that the unique administrative structure and unifying scientific interest enable a stronger focus on research versus other administrative demands.

(Jenkins) “The center is the best jury-rigged apparatus we could come up with as faculty because we created the CFI, a dean didn't. It's the best we could do. And it does have some advantages, because, you know, we can really focus almost exclusively on research, research excellence, creating value-added programs that go above what your average department tries to do. Take the best and make them better. And the center model is good at that. And Matt always liked that. We didn't have to worry about teaching if we didn't want to or anything other than doing research.”^[63]

(Hogquist) “I was very closely involved with that external advisory board at the time and their site visit. And the recommendation for us to be a department [of immunology] was really more like a suggestion that the university invest in immunology. And the university just hasn't been in a great position to invest in immunology since that time, actually. So even when they—the report suggested that, I was like, it's highly unlikely that they'll be in a position to do that. But I think not being a department has served us really well. Because […] we don't argue about these structural department politic kind of things. We don't have combative meetings about promotion and tenure. All that happens in our own home departments, but the thing that brings us all together is immunology. And that's first and foremost. And we can be that way because we're not a department. […] we might be forced to become [administratively] lighter, and I think that will be good for us. Because, again, it will bring us back to, ‘oh, right, the science is what's keeping us all together,’ not anything artificial, you know. So I think it's okay. It's a happy circumstance that led us to have to be this way, and it was to our benefit.” ^[61]

As of 2025, the center model remained in place, and the CFI’s dependency on departmental- and dean-level partnerships continues. Dr. Furcht presented the belief that centers and departments are not “mutually exclusive” and that “they can be symbiotic”. He continued, “I think it works better in a sense that you've got two entities that can work together to make something happen. […] The future is synergies. […] So where [the department is] interested, the CFI is interested, Dean's interested. You get this coalescence of people raising their hands… I think that works well.”^[64]

Keys to success: leadership that fostered collegiality 

Many nascent centers and institutes at universities receive ample resources, new infrastructure, and opportunities for faculty recruitment, but not all succeed. While resources and recruitment are undoubtedly critical, the CFI’s early and sustained growth was facilitated by Matt Mescher’s unique leadership style that fostered mutual respect among trainees and faculty. Mescher joined the University of Minnesota in 1993 and successfully led the creation and growth of the CFI as Director until 2013 when he was succeeded by Marc Jenkins. Sadly, in December 2021, Mescher died after a battle with cancer.^[65] During interviews in 2025, his former colleagues described an unconventional academic leader, reverently describing his steady character, diplomatic acumen, and altruism.

(LeBien) “Matt was a really steady, unflappable person […] some of us, myself particularly, are more emotionally like this [waves hand up and down] and he was like this [moves hand in flat slow line]. He was very steady and that was so important because he didn't suck all the oxygen out of the room. And he could have easily, basically dominated if he wanted to…[…] he could have been more focused on Matt, but he was a tremendous citizen and there's no question that Matt was the heart and soul of the development, establishment, and success of [the] Center for Immunology.”^[66]

(Pennell) “[Matt] fit in perfectly. Because he was well respected, he got things done, but not in an abrasive or antagonistic way. It was more of a consensus seeking, but with a drive behind it. And so sometimes people that seek consensus are…they're not decisive. He was decisive. He was a great blend, hard to describe […] Yeah you couldn't help but like the guy. So, when he came here, he saw that we had this nascent group [of immunologists] and he wanted to grow it.”^[67]

(Jameson) “[…] there's certainly been fiefdoms here [at the University of Minnesota] […] [But] I'd say a big element in going back to Matt Mescher and just his personality. […] I don't think he would ever have stood up and said, ‘I am the Center for Immunology’, and ‘it's because of me that it came together!’ He could have. But he recognized that everyone's contributions made it successful. […] It's not like this leader and then some other labs beneath. I don't know if there's a direct correlation with success or impact in the field, but it does feel like everybody has a voice and everybody makes a contribution.”^[68] 

(Shimizu) “I learned so many lessons of leadership from Matt that I've not learned from anybody else. I don't know how he was able to navigate a really complicated political landscape here and allow the CFI to thrive as well as it has. He had some kind of magical touch that I really marveled at in terms of how he was able to do that so effectively given that he was a center director and not a department head. […] I don't know the best way to put this. Matt didn't have the prototypical ‘leader phenotype’ in academic medicine. […] He was very quiet. Very unassuming. He thought very deeply about everything. Very creative. But […] I don't think he ever wanted the spotlight. He just didn't behave that way. He was incredibly collaborative, and he would always put people in positions where they could be successful. […] He was just really good at [getting things done] without pissing people off. And without making people feel bad about what they were agreeing to. [laughter] I marveled at kind of how he did that so well. […] I think that just set the culture, the kind of people he wanted to recruit. He wanted to have a good team. And I think he wanted to be part of a group and not necessarily be the sole person. He didn't hog resources the way other people do you know. It was just not the way he operated. […] he was a really unique person when it came to academic leadership.”^[69]

(Hogquist) “I just can't emphasize enough how pivotal Matt Mescher was. And he was an interesting person, because he sort of paved the way for others to be… spectacular. And you didn't even know he was doing that. I mean he was so sort of soft-spoken. He worked behind the scenes. He led kind of from underneath by lifting up all people. He wasn't the one saying, ‘here's my vision, follow me!’ He had a really interesting style. So, he really empowered people to build their strongest research programs possible.”^[70]

(Furcht) “I think we've been very fortunate with the center directors, you know, with Matt, a true visionary, a good guy, got along with people well. I truly love the guy. We worked so well together. It was so gratifying. And his judgment was impeccable. And Jenkins, same way, you know.”^[71]

(Jenkins) “Matt was a transformational leader in immunology at the UMN. […] In his calm and confident way, Matt led the UMN Center for Immunology over several decades to become one of the strongest academic units at the UMN and one of the best immunology programs in the country. The UMN Center for Immunology continues today as a testament to Matt’s vision and leadership.”^[72]

With Matt Mescher, the CFI became grounded in a culture that reflected his ability to bring people together, without ego, under a common goal of building exceptional research programs. Shimizu stated, “he set the tone. And he set the culture more than any other person in those early days. He really set the tone in terms of how we're gonna work, who we're gonna recruit, how we're gonna work together. That that was all Matt.” While Mescher may have laid the foundation, the team he built was just as influential and integral to the CFI’s success. Dr. Haase remarked, “And what was Matt's strength? It wasn't Matt Mescher alone. It was Matt Mescher and everybody he recruited or retained, basically, that made immunology great.”^[73]

Tucker LeBien self-described his contrast with Matt’s even-keeled demeanor, and others recalled the benefits of LeBien’s early, high-energy nature. 

(Jameson) “Tucker [LeBien], again, was an important component of getting the whole thing started. Not in the same building as us, but you could always rely on him to keep the enthusiasm going with the administration. So, yeah, a very different style between him and Matt.^[74]

(Hogquist) “Yeah, it's interesting that Tucker wasn't in the same [Hasselmo or WMBB] building, but we always saw him. [laughter] Yeah. He was always around. He was the kind of person who would just—Show up, walk into your office or lab, and say, ‘what's going on here today!?’ You know, ‘Hey, friends!’ It's a really special person that does that. And he made himself the glue for the CFI. It was great.”^[72]

When broadly discussing their colleagues, faculty spoke highly of their peers, referencing their kindness, generosity, and quality as scientists. 

(Pennell) “I feel like they're all good people. Everybody has their own career interests obviously, front and center, but they're not going to stab you in the back to get there. And you don't find that in other groups, especially groups with this high level of talent. So I don't know if it's a Midwest thing or what, [laughter] but I think this is almost a unique coalition of high quality individuals, that are high quality both scientifically, and in their personalities. And the way that they interact with folks. And that's really rare. I don’t know the right word […] but I'm really happy I'm part of the group.”^[75]

(Blazar) “[The Center for Immunology has] gotten stronger, I mean, I can definitely say that. I mean, it has maintained its philosophy of recruiting people who are very nice and smart, which is really great. And they've done really well at elevating the facilities and technologies.”^[76]

From a place of mutual respect and the feeling of community, shared responsibility over the CFI’s growth added to the center’s success and allowed its leadership to maintain a more oligarchal versus hierarchical system of administration. Hogquist described how “both Matt and Marc [had] always been very minimalist on the administration side. Everything was like, ‘this needs to be done. Who can step up and help with it?’ […] see what needs to be done, and you just do it. […] I think that model was a big part of the success of the CFI, too.” This atmosphere of communal engagement among CFI members was also sustainable, as Jameson described, 

“I think new faculty coming in adapt to the environment that is already there. And if there had been this little clique here, and they collaborate, and there's this little clique over there… you'd pick one or the other. It really wasn't like that. And it never felt like you were being rebuffed for wanting to collaborate. [You were] guided that this was a safe place to go. I think that was very liberating. If the science took you in a certain direction [people were there to help] …, and fast-forwarding decades, that's kind of how it's played out. […] It's hard to imagine what would have been an alternative where it would have been very different. But you can see that reflected in some other institutions, where people working on similar things… they never talk to each other? […] That really never happened here, I feel.”^[72]

The attitude and expectation of engagement went beyond the University of Minnesota immunology community. Through a mix of serendipity and the service-oriented culture, the CFI became highly active and visible in the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), which further advanced its national and international reputation. Shimizu described how, 

“CFI faculty have been very service-oriented within AAI. And I don't know why that is, except, well, I have two guesses. One is, you know, AAI was started in Minneapolis, so there is this historical connection with the university through AAI. But the other reason, I think, is because of Michelle Hogan. So Michelle Hogan was the executive director of AAI for many, many years. She got her PhD in the Pathobiology graduate program here in LMP. She's from Minnesota. […] so she would routinely tap people here for positions in the AAI, committee work or other kinds of things. […] She always knew that she could count on CFI faculty to be involved in AAI. The advanced course was here [in Minneapolis] for four or five years, I think. You know, we were pretty involved at the time. […] so that's the other place where I think the visibility of the CFI was pretty apparent to the immunology community.”^[77]

Maintaining this culture within the CFI was not an accident. Mescher and Jenkins were highly intentional when it came to supporting the immunology community, focusing on both the community’s size and activities that brought people together across labs and research interests. Hogquist spoke about how,

“[…] Matt and Marc have also been very thoughtful about the size of the community. I mean, Matt had read these studies about community size that are based in other places in the world, like in church size, like ‘how big does a church grow before it splits into subgroups?’ And other organizations and stuff, and applied it to the CFI. And a group of people that's greater than 150 start to split into subgroups. And so he was really careful to be thinking about the core group of the CFI as not being greater than 150 people. And it's true. We love that we all know each other. You know, like a postdoc in Dave [Masopust]'s lab can get a letter of recommendation from me even though we never work together because I just know that person's work. These little things like our retreat and the tea time and social events and stuff have been really crucial to building an atmosphere that people really feel their identity is associated with. […] so we can create this identity and home for people, but if we're too big, we lose that.”^[78]

Lab space, research infrastructure, and financial resources for faculty recruitment are core elements that created the necessary scaffolding for resuscitating the legacy of world-class immunology research at the University of Minnesota. However, the leaders and individual members of the immunology community brought to life the possibility of a research enterprise void of fiefdoms and instead thrived through a culture of mutual respect, collaboration, and service.