Helen Sabzevari

Dr. Sabzevari is a global thought leader who is internationally recognized for her work in the field of oncology. Her career-long efforts have helped bridge the gap between cancer cell biology and immunology, bringing these disciplines together to understand how the immune system and cancer cells interact on the broader system level and form the basis for many current efforts in immuno-oncology, particularly in the field of cancer vaccines.

Dr. Sabzevari is currently President and CEO of Precigen, Inc., a dedicated discovery and clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. At Precigen, Dr. Sabzevari is leading discovery and development of the next generation of gene and cell therapies using precision technology to unmet medical needs in the areas of immuno-oncology, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases.

Prior to Precigen, Dr. Sabzevari was co-founder and chief scientific officer of Compass Therapeutics, a fully integrated drug discovery and development company focused on manipulating the immune system to treat human disease. Prior to Compass Therapeutics, Dr. Sabzevari was senior vice president of immuno-oncology at Merck Serono (a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), where her pioneering efforts led to the foundation of Merck Serono’s immuno-oncology translational innovation platform for developing and advancing therapies, including cancer vaccines, cancer stem cell treatments and approaches to reset the immune system so that it is primed to eliminate cancer cells. Prior to Merck Serono, Dr. Sabzevari led the Molecular Immunology Group at the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology at the US National Cancer Institute (LTIB-NCI), where she was focused on design, development and delivery of novel vaccines and immunotherapies for a range of human cancers.

Dr. Sabzevari has been author or senior author on over 40 scientific publications and has been the recipient of the Mass High Tech’s Women to Watch Award, the PharmaVOICE 100 Award and the NIH Merit Award for major contributions to the field of cancer immunotherapy. Most recently, Dr. Sabzevari received the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Team Science Award for her work on the NCI Cancer Immunotherapy Program Team.

Dr. Sabzevari received her Ph.D. in cell and molecular immunology and completed her postdoctoral work at the department of immunology at the Scripps Research Institute working on various immunotherapeutic modalities in the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.