The Department of Immunology in College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University was separated and established from the Department of Microbiology in former Bethune Medical University. The institution was granted the authority to confer master’s and doctoral degrees in immunology in 1978 and 1988 respectively. In 1988, it was designated as a national key discipline in immunology at higher education institutions. In 1998, it became one of the national “211 Project” key construction disciplines. In 2002, it became a provincial key discipline during the “Ninth Five Year Plan” and “Tenth Five Year Plan” period. In 2005, it was selected among the “100 Excellent Courses” at Jilin University. In 2006, it became a provincial key discipline during the “11th five year plan”.

       The Department of immunology has a strong research strength, which has been adhering to a rigorous scientific attitude, focus on study of the basic theory and application of immunology. It has gradually formed several stable research fields, including “vaccine and adjuvant”, “immune regulation and tolerance”, “neuroimmunology and gene therapy”, “tumor immunology and adjuvant development”, “macrophages, cytokines and diseases”. The Department has undertaken dozens of national 863, 973 and NSFC projects, and trained hundreds of postdoctoral, doctoral and master students. The scientific research level of the Department of immunology is in the forefront of the domestic same disciplines and in the leading position in the province. In 2017, the immunology discipline (field) of Jilin University ranked in the top 1% of the world's ESI for the first time, having a high academic influence in the world.

       The Department of immunology is also responsible for teaching immunology courses to various levels of students. We explore the appropriate teaching positioning, teaching mode, teaching method and teaching material construction according to different levels of teaching, which has become the ideal, pursuit and action of the discipline at all times. More than 30 textbooks has been successively edited and participated in editing, and multi-directional teaching reform were carried out, dozens of teaching reform papers were published, and many national, provincial and school level teaching achievement awards were obtained.