W. Martin Kast

W. Martin Kast, PhD, is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Urology and Otolaryngology at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCCC) of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. He holds the Walter A. Richter Cancer Research Chair and is the co-director of the NCCC Tumor Micro-environment program, the Director of the USC Medical Biology and Infectious Diseases, Immunology & Pathogenesis PhD Graduate Programs, the Director of the Beckman Center for Immune Monitoring, the Director of the K-12 Cancer Education Program for underrepresented minorities and the Associate Dean of Academic Integrity.

A native of the Netherlands, he earned his BS, MS, and PhD summa cum laude, from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He has and is serving on multiple Study Sections including the National Institute of Health and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. His research involves the design of therapeutic cancer vaccines directed against human papilloma virus (HPV) and prostate cancer. Several of his therapeutic HPV vaccines have or are currently been tried out in clinical trials. He studies how HPV enters cells and also studies the interaction of HPV with the human immune system to find out how HPV escapes immune detection and how to reverse that. He has published over 280 articles that have been quoted almost 25,000 times and lead to a publication h-index of 83. He is also the inventor on 18 patents. His research is supported by NIH grants. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Translational Medicine, Cancers, and Papillomavirus research. He also served as the secretary/treasurer of the International Papillomavirus Society from 2012-2019 and serves on the advisory board of 6 biotechnology companies. In his free time he is a Scoutmaster and an actor.