Dr. Gilboa, the Joe Enloe Dodson professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Miami, USA, is known for his pioneering work in gene therapy, HIV/AIDS, and cancer immunotherapy. His group has introduced novel concepts that helped shape these fields; the use of “self-inactivating” retroviral vectors that became a common feature of retroviral and lentiviral vector, HIV TAR decoys, and mRNA transfected dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, the precursor of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. More recently, his lab has pioneered the use of oligonucleotide-based ligands to modulate tumor immunity, demonstrating their exceptional efficiency to target siRNAs, aptamers, and small molecule drugs, to the immune system or to tumor lesions. Dr. Gilboa’s lab has introduced new concepts in cancer immunotherapy to promote immune memory, limit immune modulation to tumors, enhance uptake of tumor antigens by dendritic cells and recently, a novel vaccination concept targeting a common set of experimentally induced neoantigens.
