Pedro Romero

Perdo Romero obtained his medical degree in 1982 at the National University of Colombia. He then joined the Institute of Immunology at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Bogota. He went on for postgraduate studies at New York University, where he worked on the immune response mediated by T lymphocytes to the hepatic stage of malaria. In 1989, he joined the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Epalinges, Switzerland. There, he became the head of the division of clinical onco-immunology and obtained the ad personam professeur extraordinaire at the faculty of medicine of UNIL in 2003. Since his move to Switzerland, Pedro Romero has focused his research on tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy, in particular on the process of antigen recognition by cytolytic T lymphocytes, involved in tumor monitoring and rejection. In collaboration with Daniel Speiser, he initiated numerous phase I inical trials of synthetic therapeutic vaccines against melanoma. His studies also focus on other cancers, notably bladder tumors, which are known for their low response to traditional oncology treatment. His work aims at improving patient’s response to therapy by educating the patient’s immune cells to recognize tumor antigens. His work has been awarded by the Robert-Wenner Prize 2001 by the Swiss League against cancer. Perdo Romero is dedicated to develop new therapeutic approaches to save lives by bringing his fundamental research towards the clinic. He has published more than 320 articles in peer reviewed journals and in turn is the founding and current Editor-in-chief of the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.