Jonathan Serody received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Virginia. He trained at the University of North Carolina Hospitals and subsequently did postdoctoral fellowships in infectious diseases, and hematology at the University of North Carolina and transplantation and oncology training at the FHCRC. He spent his postdoctoral fellowship research training in the laboratory of Dr Jeffrey Frelinger evaluating the role of specific immune cells in the response to pathogens using genetically altered animals. Additionally, his work evaluated the immune response to a specific leukemia CML. He initiated his laboratory in combination with Dr. Kirby's laboratory in 1997 with the opening of the new wing of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Serody has been a faculty member of the Department of Medicine and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center since 1993 and is currently the Elizabeth Thomas Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology.

Suzanne Kirby received her undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University. She obtained her medical degree and Ph.D. in pathology under the direction of Dr. Stuart Bentley at the University of North Carolina. She did her postdoctoral clinical training in hematology and oncology at the University of North Carolina where she was a postdoctoral trainee with Oliver Smithies the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Her work in the Smithies laboratory involved the use of a truncated erythropoietin receptor expressed transgenically as a method of enhancing stem cell engraftment/function by the exogenous administration of erythropoietin. She was also involved in seminal work regarding the role of chemokines in the immune response to pathogen. She initiated her laboratory in concert with Dr. Serody in 1997 with the opening of the new wing of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Kirby joined the faculty in 1997 and is currently an Associate Professor of Pathology.