Immunology is a major branch of medicine and a core subject area that medical students typically study on their journey to becoming physicians. Learning how the body wards off dangerous pathogens, neutralizes toxins, and destroys abnormal cells, such as cancer, is key to understanding many pieces of human health and disease.
Now, expert immunologists at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine are leading the charge toward improving and standardizing the way medical students learn this essential subject.
Aimee Bernard, PhD, Vijaya Knight, MD, PhD, and Scott B. Thompson, PhD, were part of an American Association of Immunologists (AAI) education committee task force, composed of 11 experts across the country, that identified and outlined immunology curriculum recommendations. The experts published the resulting foundational topics, specific learning objectives, and associated clinical conditions in an August 2026 abstract in the Journal of Immunology and a new paper in ImmunoHorizons.
The task force developed these recommendations after administering surveys to medical school faculty around the U.S. to assess how immunology is currently being taught and where gaps exist.
Bernard, senior author of the paper and associate professor in the CU Anschutz Department of Immunology and Microbiology, says the recommendations aren’t intended to be rigid requirements; rather, they’re a flexible set of guidelines that allows educators the autonomy to pick and choose the most relevant approaches for their students.
“We don’t want these guidelines to feel like a mandate. We think of them as a ‘choose your own adventure’ guide,” says Bernard. She hopes the recommendations will also offer valuable guidance and inspiration for newer medical school professors and serve as a touchstone for more experienced educators.
Why are new guidelines needed?
According to past research, medical school curricula across the U.S. vary between schools. Immunology is enormously complex, and Bernard says it can be challenging even for experts to choose the most important and relevant parts of the subject to teach students. There can also be challenges with finding enough instructional time to teach immunology concepts.
“Even though I’m an immunologist who has been teaching for 19 years, it can be stressful selecting what to teach students so they will be the best physicians possible when it comes to understanding and applying their knowledge of the immune system in future clinical practice,” she says.
Although the immune system is a “mobile defense force” and touches every area of medicine, there are a variety of reasons medical schools don’t always comprehensively cover the subject. In response, the AAI convened a task force to create new recommendations for medical school immunology curricula nationwide. Bernard co-chaired the task force, sits on the curriculum steering committee at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine, and is also the school’s immunology content director.
The AAI Education Committee has committed to reviewing and updating these recommendations every three to five years to keep pace with new knowledge and advancements in immunology.
What the surveys revealed
The task force administered a two-part survey about medical school immunology education, inviting immunology faculty from every medical school in the country to participate. Roughly 30% of those invited participated in the survey. After the first survey, the task force created learning objectives and paired them with illustrative clinical conditions, then fine-tuned these suggestions based on feedback from a second survey of immunology educators.
The survey responses reflected the diverse and variable nature of immunology education in medical schools, but there were some reassuring trends. While only 18% of respondents indicated that their schools offered standalone immunology courses or blocks, many more indicated the content was integrated throughout the curriculum (similar to the CU Anschutz School of Medicine Trek curriculum) or taught in combined courses with other subjects.
Schools also allot varying amounts of time to teaching immunology. Bernard says a solid foundation in immunology for medical students would require at least 30 to 40 hours of instruction time in total. A few schools say they devote more than 50 hours to teaching immunology, but a handful of survey respondents said their schools require as few as 10 hours in the subject. A quarter of respondents said they felt their schools did not spend sufficient time covering immunology.
The surveys revealed there was broad consensus around 15 foundational immunology topics that should be taught, ranging from cells, organs, and microenvironments of the immune system to immune diagnostics. The task force members assembled five to 10 learning objectives for each topic, such as “Describe the process of leukocyte extravasation” and “Evaluate the association of human leukocyte antigens (HLA) with certain diseases.”
These topics and learning objectives can be covered in dedicated immunology classes or woven into more integrated curricula, and they’re designed to help ensure medical students are adequately prepared for their future careers in medicine.
Bernard also says that as immunotherapy innovations continue to transform clinical care, a strong foundation in immunology is more essential than ever in medical education, equipping future physicians with the knowledge to harness the power of the immune system to prevent, treat, and potentially cure disease.
Educators have given largely positive feedback on the guidelines so far, Bernard says. A few survey respondents have even said they planned to leverage the task force’s recommendations for more immunology instruction time at their schools.
“We feel like we developed a really solid set of guidelines for teaching immunology in medical schools,” says Bernard. “We think these will help faculty who teach immunology in medical schools and make sure we're all on the same page as to what medical students should learn to be successful physicians in future clinical practice.”
