Andrea Schietinger, PhD, to Present 2023 AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lecture

PHILADELPHIA — The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award the 19th AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship to Andrea Schietinger, PhD, during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, April 14-19 in Orlando, Florida.

Schietinger, an associate member of the Immunology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and an associate professor of Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, is being recognized for her unparalleled scientific contributions to the field of immunology.

Her research has elucidated the molecular mechanisms of T-cell function and immune responses to disease, including how CD8-positive T cells may become dysfunctional in tumors and various chronic diseases. Schietinger’s research has further helped to determine the cellular mechanisms by which antigen-specific T cells evade immune-suppressive mechanisms in normal tissue and tumor ecosystems. These findings have subsequently fueled the development of strategies for molecular- and immune-targeted therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases.

The AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship was established in 2005 to acknowledge an individual whose outstanding personal innovation in science and whose position as a thought leader in fields relevant to cancer research has the potential to inspire creative thinking and new directions in cancer research. The recipient of this special lectureship is selected annually by the AACR President.

“I am thrilled that Dr. Schietinger is the 2023 Weinstein Foundation lecturer,” said AACR President Lisa M. Coussens, PhD, FAACR. “As a classically trained immunologist, Dr. Schietinger brings to tumor immunology remarkable insights into T-cell functionality that are sure to impact strategies for immune therapy in patients with cancer.”

Schietinger has been studying aspects of fundamental tumor immunology since graduate school, where she discovered a mechanism by which altered protein processing in tumor cells could create new targets for the immune system. As a postdoctoral fellow, she demonstrated that tumor-reactive T cells use similar gene regulatory processes as self-reactive T cells to dampen the immune response. Since establishing her own laboratory, she has demonstrated that T cells decrease their ability to respond to cancer cells early during tumor development, and has since helped define the underlying molecular mechanisms of this process.

Schietinger has been an AACR member since 2008. She has received many other awards throughout her career, including the AAI-BD Biosciences Investigator Award (2022), Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR Award (2019), NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2017), V Foundation Scholar Award (2016), Josie Robertson Young Investigator Scholar Award (2015), NIH ‐ National Cancer Institute Pathway to Independence Award (2013), and Cancer Research Institute Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship (2011).

Schietinger received her doctoral degree with Hans Schreiber, MD, PhD, in biological sciences and tumor immunology from a joint program of the University of Chicago and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Philip D. Greenberg, MD, FAACR, and served as an acting instructor at the University of Washington before joining Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2015. The date, time, and title of her award lecture will be announced prior to the AACR Annual Meeting 2023.