Padmanee Sharma

Dr. Sharma is a nationally regarded cancer immunologist and professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology, Associate Vice President of Immunobiology and the T.C. and Jeanette D. Hsu Endowed Chair in Cell Biology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She received her undergraduate training in biology and biotechnology at Boston University and earned her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Pennsylvania State University. She then completed an internal medicine residency at New York Hospital Cornell University as well as a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Sharma’s research focuses on the mechanisms and pathways within the immune system that facilitate tumor rejection or elicit resistance to immune checkpoint therapy. She has written and conducted multiple innovative immunotherapy clinical trials, with an emphasis on obtaining patients’ tumor samples for in-depth laboratory studies. The data from her work has led to new research studies focused on developing rational combination immunotherapy strategies for the treatment of cancer patients.

As a result of her contributions to the field of cancer immunotherapy, Dr. Sharma was selected as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and was awarded the Emil Frei III Award for Excellence in Translational Research in 2016, the Coley Award for Distinguished Research for Tumor Immunology in 2018, the Women in Science with Excellence (WISE) Award in 2020, the Heath Memorial Award in 2021 and the Randall Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research in 2021.