Thorsten Mempel

Thorsten Mempel, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director of the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital, whose faculty he joined in 2007.

Dr. Mempel’s research laboratory uses intravital microscopy and complementary methods to explore how immune cells communicate with each other in our tissues in order to mount immune responses against infectious pathogens, but also against cancer. His particular interest is how the functions of anti-cancer T cells are regulated during such immune responses. This work has led him to the groundbreaking discovery that targeting the CARMA1–BCL10–MALT1 (CBM) complex can reprogram immune-suppressive regulatory T cells (Tregs) into anti-tumor effector cells, which he published in Nature in 2019, and based on which Monopteros Therapeutics was founded.

Dr. Mempel obtained his MD at the University of Munich in Germany, where he also earned a doctorate in cardiovascular physiology for studies on ischemia-reperfusion injury of the heart.