Sattva S. Neelapu, MD
Photo: Sattva Neelapu

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Elected 2019

Dr. Sattva S Neelapu is a tenured Professor, Deputy Chair ad interim, and Director of Translational Research in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA. He is internationally recognized for his research in tumor immunology and immunotherapy in lymphoid malignancies. After graduating from medical school at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, India, he moved to the United States for Internal Medicine residency at the Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, where he also served as a Chief Medical Resident. He completed his clinical fellowship in Medical Oncology and postdoctoral fellowship in tumor immunology and immunotherapy at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. As a physician-scientist at MD Anderson, he is focused on clinical and translational development of novel immunotherapies for B-cell malignancies. His laboratory characterized some of the major immunosuppressive mechanisms in the tumor microenvironment of B-cell malignancies, identified TCL1 as a novel shared tumor-associated antigen for B-cell lymphomas, and investigated novel targets for CAR T-cell therapy in lymphoma and myeloma. His clinical research initially focused on the development of therapeutic vaccines for lymphoid malignancies and he conducted some of the first immune checkpoint inhibitor trials in lymphoma. Most recently, his work on the pivotal trial of axicabtagene ciloleucel CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in aggressive B-cell lymphomas led to its FDA approval as the first CAR T therapy for lymphoma. His laboratory research is supported by multiple peer-reviewed grants from the National Cancer Institute, Department of Defense, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, and Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. Dr. Neelapu has authored or co-authored over 150 publications.