We are excited to announce that Dr. Dario Vignali has formally accepted to join the Department of Immunology at UPSOM. He will be moving here from his current position as Vice Chair and Member, Department of Immunology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He will begin his appointment here on or before August 1st.
Dr. Vignali will be the Vice-Chair of the Department of Immunology, the co-Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and will co-Lead, along with Dr. Robert Ferris, a newly expanded (and slightly renamed) Center focusing on the Tumor Microenvironment. The latter will be built via the combined efforts of Drs. Vignali and Ferris and via resources allocated to each of them for this purpose.
Dr. Vignali will have lab space in both BST and UPCI, with most of the positions at BST. He will thus serve as a very important bridge between the two sites and cancer immunology research that occurs in both places.
Dr. Vignali is an eminent immunologist known for his discoveries in cytokine biology, regulatory T cell function, immunoregulation, autoimmunity and cancer immunology. He is a conceptual and technological innovator. We are very fortunate to have him joining our faculty as I expect he will spur numerous collaborations and bring a broad expertise that will enhance all of our work.