Eli Gilboa, Ph.D., a national leader in translating promising immune therapies from the laboratory into patient care—particularly against cancer and HIV/AIDS—has joined the faculty of the Miller School of Medicine. He will have dual appointments in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and in the Division of Hematology Oncology at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center as he develops an Interdisciplinary Immunotherapy Institute that will serve patients across the Miller School. The institute will focus on cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmunity, and transplantation. In addition to yielding therapies in each of those areas, the institute will encourage synergism and cross-fertilization across disciplines.

Gilboa comes to Miami from Duke University, where he has held dual appointments in the Departments of Surgery and Immunology since 1993. He is a pioneer in gene therapy, having developed the first generation of retroviral vectors used in the first human trials. He has continued to lead novel research into gene therapy in oncology and HIV/ AIDS, and he has been an innovator in RNA-based therapeutics.