Steven A. Rosenberg

Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D. is Chief of the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Research (NCI/CCR), and holds professorships in Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Additionally, he is a Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet. Rosenberg’s career spans over 50 years at the NCI, where he has led transformative research in immunotherapy and gene therapy for advanced cancers.

• B.A. and M.D. from The Johns Hopkins University (1964, 1968)
• Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University (1971)
• Residency in Surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (1974)

Rosenberg’s research focuses on cancer immunology, adoptive cell transfer therapy, and genetic engineering of immune cells. His work has established interleukin-2 as the first FDA-approved immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma and renal cancer, and he pioneered tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for B-cell malignancies. Recent studies emphasize targeting patient-specific mutations in solid epithelial cancers.

His selected publications highlight trends in mutation-specific immunotherapy, genetic engineering of lymphocytes, and applications in melanoma, breast cancer, and lymphomas. These works span Science, Nature, NEJM, and Clinical Cancer Research.

Scientific Awards include the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2023), AACR Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research (2024), Keio Medical Science Prize, Samuel D. Gross Prize, and Albany Medical Center Prize, among over 30 major honors. His work has been recognized by the National Academy of Medicine and cited over 1200 times.

Rosenberg leads a multidisciplinary team at the NCI Surgery Branch, translating laboratory discoveries into clinical trials for metastatic breast cancer, melanoma, sarcomas, and lymphomas. His team includes Stephanie L. Goff (Senior Research Physician), Rachel Beyer (Staff Scientist), and others.