Professor Gabrielle Belz is internationally recognised for her pioneering research into the factors that shape the development of immune protection – a feature essential for survival. She has defined the function and molecular regulators of immune subsets critical for protection against disease, and pioneered the identification of new mechanisms driving T cell development that underpins protective immunity. She generated novel experimental tools to study immune responses; and her work has had major impact internationally – she illuminated fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms to define how we generate lasting immune memory, but minimise the damaging effects of autoimmunity and immune pathology.