Vinod Balachandran

Vinod Balachandran is a Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgeon and Physician Scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), where he also serves as Director of The Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines. His work bridges clinical surgery with groundbreaking research in pancreatic cancer immunotherapy, focusing on neoantigen vaccines and T cell immunity.

Research Interests:

• Developing personalized RNA neoantigen vaccines to prime long-lived CD8+ T cells.
• Investigating ILC2s and tertiary lymphoid structures in tumor immunity.
• Understanding neoantigen quality and its role in immunoediting and survival.

Scientific Awards:

• TIME100 Most Influential People in Health (2025)
• FNIH Trailblazer Prize for Clinician-Scientists (2023)
• NIH Paul Calabresi Career Development Award
• Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award
• Stand Up To Cancer Convergence Award

Key Collaborations: Affiliated with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and involved in clinical trials combining mRNA vaccines with immunotherapy.