Dr. Tracy Handel obtained her PhD in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, conducted postdoctoral studies at Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals, began her academic career at the University of California Berkeley where she obtained tenure, and is currently a Distinguished Professor and former Division Chair in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of San Diego. She is internationally recognized as an expert in chemokine structure and function, including interactions of chemokines with chemokine receptors, chemokine receptor/effector complexes and glycosaminoglycans, and the mechanisms of atypical scavenging and dual function chemokine receptors that have both G protein-dependent signaling and G protein-independent scavenging functions. More recently she has pursued more translational research directions to exploit the chemokine system for improved immunotherapy. She is on the Scientific Advisory Board of several companies and has received several awards including the National Science Young Investigator Award, the Pew Scholars Award and most recently was elected Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.