Thomas Gajewski MD PhD

Thomas Gajewski, M.D., Ph.D., is the AbbVie Foundation Professor in Cancer Immunotherapy, leader of the Immunology and Cancer program, and Director of Melanoma Oncology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Gajewski’s notable discoveries include the identification of the STING pathway and how it stimulates the body’s innate immune system to attack cancer, downstream pathways including Wnt/β-catenin that enable tumors to evade immune responses, and the connection between the immune system’s response to cancer and the gut microbiota. An author of more than 250 manuscripts, Dr. Gajewski is past president of SITC, a founding editor of the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, past chair of the Cancer Immunopathology and Immunotherapy grant review study section at the NIH, has served on the program committees for ASCO and AACR, a grant reviewer for the Melanoma Research Alliance and Cancer Research Institute, and editor for Cancer Research. Among numerous honors, Dr. Gajewski has received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor Immunology, the ESMO award in Immuno-oncology, the American Cancer Society-Jules L. Plangere Jr. Family Foundation Professorship in Cancer Immunotherapy, and Distinguished Professor designation at the University of Chicago. He holds a B.S., Ph.D. in Immunology, and M.D. degrees from the University of Chicago where he also completed Internal Medicine Residency and Hematology/Oncology Fellowship.