Geoffrey Marcus PhD

Chairman and Chief Scientist

Dr. Marcus obtained his PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1971 from the Technische Universität Braunschweig as a student of Professor Manfred Puter for research done at the Max Planck Institut für Biophysikalische Chemie in Göttingen, Germany. He began his research on immune network theory in 1974 at that Institute.

From December 1974 to March 1979 he was a member of the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland, where Professor Niels Jerne was the Director. Jerne is acknowledged to be the father of immune network theory. Both Puter and Jerne won Nobel Prizes. During his time in Basel, Marcus formulated and published the basic components of the symmetrical network theory of the regulation of the immune system. 

In 1979 he accepted a faculty position in the Department of Physics at the University of British Columbia, where he has continued to develop the symmetrical network theory. From 1979 to 1996 Dr. Marcus was also head of an experimental immunology laboratory in the Department of Microbiology at UBC. 

Dr. Marcus took a sabbatical leave in 1985-1986 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. During this time he worked mainly on a neural network theory that is based on the many similarities between the immune system and the brain, and also published a theoretical paper on the origin of war and a strategy for peace. In addition to his theoretical work, Dr. Marcus has managed experimental immunology projects in both biotechnology company and university settings. V