HMS graduate student Salil Garg received the 2011 Jeffrey Modell Prize, presented annually since 2000 for the best dissertation and overall contribution to the Harvard Graduate Program in ­Immunology.

Left to right: Vicki and Fred Modell, and MD/PhD student Salil Garg. Garg was honored by the couple, who funded an endowment to recognize excellence in immunology in honor of their late son, for whom the Jeffrey Modell Immunology Center at HMS is named.

Garg, who earned a doctorate in 2010 and plans to finish his medical degree in 2012, used the technique known as RNA interference to screen for novel genes used by the immune system to control the digestion and processing of invading microbes within compartments called lysosomes for presentation to immune T cells.

After a residency in pathology, Garg plans a career in basic science, aiming to bring advances in cellular and molecular immunology to bear on the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.