Immunotherapy has launched a new era for cancer treatment. Studies leading to the discovery of immune checkpoints and the effectiveness of their blockade have changed the way cancer patients are treated today. Over the last few decades, JEM has published landmark papers that have delineated the field of immunotherapy, some of which have contributed to the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for James Allison and Tasuku Honjo (http://jem.rupress.org/cc/2018-nobel-prize-collection). To underscore JEM’s interest in this field and our commitment to publishing studies relevant to cancer treatment, we are expanding the JEM editorial board by adding two outstanding scientists who have made great contributions to understanding the cross-talk between cancer and immune cells and have led the way toward the development of new cancer therapies. We are extremely pleased to welcome Arlene Sharpe and Jedd Wolchok to the JEM board.
Arlene Sharpe is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and Chair of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. She is also the Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Co-Director of the Evergrande Center for Immunological Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Jedd Wolchok is the Lloyd J. Old/Virginia and Daniel K. Ludwig Chair in Clinical Investigation and Chief, Melanoma & Immunotherapeutics Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is also the Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Associate Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, and a member of the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. The full profiles of the two new editors can be found below.
Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology, Chair of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School, and Co-Director of the Evergrande Center for Immunological Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Sharpe earned her AB from Harvard University and her MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School. She completed residency training in Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is board certified in Anatomical Pathology. Dr. Sharpe is a leader in the field of T cell costimulation. Her laboratory has discovered and elucidated functions of T cell costimulatory pathways, including the immunoinhibitory functions of the CTLA-4 and PD-1 pathways, which are targets for cancer immunotherapy. Her laboratory currently investigates roles of T cell costimulatory pathways in cancer, autoimmunity, and infection. Dr. Sharpe has published over 300 papers and was listed by Thomson Reuters as one of the most Highly Cited Researchers (top 1%) in 2014–2018 and a 2016 Citation Laureate. She received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor Immunology in 2014 and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize in 2017 for her contributions to the discovery of PD-1 pathway. Dr. Sharpe is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Jedd Wolchok is Chief of the Melanoma Service and holds the Lloyd J. Old Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is also head of the Swim Across America Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory, Associate Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, SU2C–ACS Lung Cancer Dream Team Co-leader, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Wolchok is a clinician-scientist exploring innovative immunotherapeutic strategies in laboratory models and a principal investigator in numerous pivotal clinical trials. He specializes in the treatment of melanoma. The focus of his translational research laboratory is to investigate innovative means to modulate the immune response to cancer as well as to better understand the mechanistic basis for sensitivity and resistance to currently available immunotherapies.
