Gary W. Litman, Ph.D.

Dr. Litman received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1972 and immediately joined the Cornell University Graduate School of Medicine and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. In 1985 he became a Senior Member and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at Tampa Bay Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. He joined the faculty at USF in 1990 and holds the Andrew and Ann Hines Endowed Chair in Pediatrics. Dr. Litman is a Distinguished University Professor, Vice Chairman of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research (St. Petersburg). Dr. Litman's major research interests in developmental immunology are funded by the National Institutes of Health, by whom he was given a MERIT award.

Education & Training

Scholarly Activity

• Development of the immune system.


• Diversity and relative stability of multigene families.


• Alternative forms of immune recognition

Select Publications

Cannon JP, Haire RN, Litman GW. Identification of diversified genes that contain immunoglobulin-like variable regions in a protochordate. Nature Immunology, 2002, 3, 1200-1207.

Litman GW, Cannon JP, Dishaw LJ. Reconstructing immune phylogeny: new perspectives. Nature Reviews Immunology, 2005, 5, 866-879.

Hernández Prada JA, Haire RN, Allaire M, Jakoncic J, Stojanoff V, Cannon JP, Litman GW, Ostrov DA. Ancient evolutionary origin of diversified variable regions revealed by crystal structures of an amphioxus VCBP. Nature Immunology, 2006, 7, 875-882.

Rast JP, Smith LC, Loza-Coll M, Hibino T, Litman GW. Genomic insights into the immune system of the sea urchin. Science, 2006, 314, 952-956.

Cannon JP, Haire RN, Magis AT, Eason DD, Winfrey KN, Hernandez Prada JA, Bailey KM, Jakoncic J, Litman GW, Ostrov DA. A bony fish immunological receptor of the NITR multigene family mediates allogeneic recognition. Immunity, 2008, 29, 228-237.

Litman GW, Rast JP, Fugmann SD. Origins of vertebrate adaptive immunity. Nat Rev Immunol 2010, 10:543-553