robert schreiber 2021 headshot

Robert Schreiber, Ph.D.

Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor of Pathology and ImmunologyWashington Unversity School of Medicine in St.Louis

Robert D. Schreiber, PhD is the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also the Founding Director of the Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs, Co-Leader of the Tumor Immunology Program at the Siteman Comprehensive Cancer Center at Washington University, an Extramural Member Researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, an Associate Director of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cancer Research Institute, and a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors to the National Cancer Institute. For the last 40 years, Schreiber’s research has focused on interferon-gamma biology, IFN-gamma receptor signaling and elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying natural and therapeutically induced immune responses to developing and established cancers. At a time when the field had dismissed the possibility that immunity participated in cancer formation and control, Schreiber’s group unequivocally demonstrated that the immune system not only protects the host against cancer but also favors cancer outgrowth by shaping tumor cell immunogenicity—a process they called “Cancer Immunoediting”. His team then went on to provide strong evidence supporting each of the three phases of the cancer immunoediting process—Elimination, Equilibrium and Escape. Schreiber’s group also produced the first STAT1-/-, JAK1-/- and NIK-/- mice and used them to develop mouse cancer models including a spontaneous mouse model of human luminal breast cancer. In the course of Schreiber’s career, his lab has generated a number of key monoclonal antibody reagents that neutralize cytokines or block cytokine receptors and validated their use in vivo to assess the role of cytokines in preventing or inducing diseases particularly cancer. Schreiber and his group pioneered an immunogenomics approach to rapidly identify immunogenic tumor specific Class I and Class II restricted neoantigens in mouse tumors and target them therapeutically. This work has formed the underpinnings of personalized cancer neoantigen vaccine immunotherapy clinical trials now being performed in several institutions. More recently Schreiber has used high dimensional profiling approaches to explore the molecular and cellular changes that occur during successful cancer immunotherapy and has identified novel biomarkers that accurately predict responses. Schreiber has received many honors for his work including the Balzan Award in 2017. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.

Sessions
Jan 01 12:00 AM Speakers