Rose Zamoyska, Professor of Immune Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, is a leading molecular immunologist and an expert in T cell signalling. She cloned the CD8 gene, the defining marker of cytotoxic T lymphoctyes, and defined the association with downstream signalling molecules such as p56lck. Of particular importance was her work on Src family kinases such as Lck that identified the central role of these signalling molecules on lineage commitment as well as survival of mature T cells. Her contributions to understanding T cell receptor signalling and its downstream consequences for activation and regulation are of central importance for understanding and managing therapeutic approaches in autoimmune diseases as well as in cancer.