Margaret S. Bynoe, Ph.D., passed away on Thursday, November 28, 2024. She was a neuroimmunologist who made important breakthroughs in opening the blood-brain barrier long enough to deliver therapies to the brain.
Dr. Bynoe trained under two AAI past presidents, whom she always considered important mentors: Betty Diamond, M.D. at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1999; and Charles A. Janeway Jr., M.D., with whom she did postdoctoral work at Yale. Since 2005, she was professor of Immunology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell, where she was an accomplished researcher and valued mentor.
At Cornell, Dr. Bynoe’s lab focused on understanding the immune system and the cellular and molecular basis of immune defects that occur in autoimmune diseases and cancer. Her lab also investigated the development of immune-based therapies to potentially treat those disorders. For example, Dr. Bynoe’s scholarship on the blood brain barrier had implications for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and cancers of the central nervous system. She also investigated underlying contributors to such end-stage diseases.
As a mentor, Dr. Bynoe was passionate about training the next generation of students, advising numerous graduate students and postdoctoral trainees over her career. Moreover, Dr. Bynoe was a role model and advocate for aspiring Black scientists locally and nationally.
Dr. Bynoe joined AAI in 2006 and was a devoted member of the Minority Affairs Committee from 2007 to 2013. She was the 2019 Vanguard Lecturer. At IMMUNOLOGY 2013™ in Honolulu, Dr. Bynoe recorded a short video in which she discussed her work and described science as “a quilt, where we all add our little bits and pieces to it.”
Angela Yan, one of Dr. Bynoe’s graduate students, has organized an online memorial.
This obituary was adapted in part from an announcement by Lorin D. Warnick, D.V.M., Ph.D., Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University.
