Stephen Hodi

Stephen Hodi, M.D. is an internationally recognized leader in the development of immune therapy and melanoma therapeutics and is especially renowned for the clinical development of checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Hodi is the Director of the Melanoma Center and the Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, the Sharon Crowley Martin Chair in Melanoma at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He led the first human trial of ipilimumab, which blocks the CTLA-4 checkpoint, and later led its phase III registration trial, which was the first study to show a survival advantage for a melanoma drug and led to FDA approval. He also is a key investigator in the clinical development of the second family of checkpoint inhibitors, which block PD-1 and PD-L1, and has led pioneering, investigator-initiated trials combining immune checkpoint blockade with cytokines and the first combination of immune checkpoint blockade with anti-angiogenesis agents.