Elvin A. Kabat, Ph.D.
Brief Bio
Elvin Abraham Kabat (1914–2000) was the forty-ninth president of the American Association of Immunologists, serving from 1965 to 1966. He was a member of the faculty of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) for over 40 years, from 1941 to 1985.
Kabat earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at P&S under Michael Heidelberger (AAI ’35, president 1946–1947, 1948–1949) in 1937. Supported by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, he completed postdoctoral training under Arne Tiselius and Kai Pederson at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Uppsala University from 1937 to 1938. Upon his return to New York, Kabat was an instructor of pathology at Cornell University Medical College for three years before joining the faculty of P&S as a research associate in biochemistry in 1941. He became an assistant professor of bacteriology in 1946 and was promoted to associate professor two years later. In 1952, Kabat became a professor of microbiology. He was named Higgins Professor of Microbiology in 1983 and retired from P&S two years later as Higgins Professor Emeritus of Microbiology.
AAI Service History
Joined: 1943
President: 1965–1966
Vice President: 1964–1965
Councillor: 1960–1964
The Journal of Immunology
Associate Editor: 1961–1965
Editorial Board: 1965–1977
Committees
Nominating Committee: 1968–1969 (chair)
Other Service
AAI Representative to the Eli Lilly Award Committee: 1957–1958, 1969–1970
President's Address
"
The Nature of an Antigenic Determinant," Delivered April 13, 1966
The Journal of Immunology 97, no. 1 (1966): 1–11.
Awards and Honors
- Eli Lilly Award in Bacteriology and Immunology, 1949
- Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1966
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1966
- Fogarty Scholarship, National Institutes of Health, 1974–1975
- Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, Columbia University, 1977
- National Medal of Science, 1991
Institutional/Biographical Links