Jeffrey A. Bluestone, PhD

Jeffrey A. Bluestone, PhD, is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology and Director of the Hormone Research Institute at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He is also the CEO and President of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Dr. Bluestone is one of the leading immunologists in the field of T-cell activation, co-stimulation, and immune tolerance research that has led to the development of multiple pro-tolerogenic immunotherapies including: CTLA4Ig (the first FDA-approved drug targeting T-cell co-stimulation to treat autoimmune disease and organ transplantation), a novel anti-human CD3 antibody being developed to treat Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and the first CTLA-4 antagonist drugs approved for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. His recent research has focused on the critical role of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in autoimmune diseases such as T1D and Multiple Sclerosis, which has been exploited as a cell-based therapy to treat T1D and organ transplantation. Dr. Bluestone is an academic leader on a national and international scale. He was the founder and first Director of the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), the largest NIH-funded multicenter clinical immunology research program, testing novel immunotherapies in transplantation, autoimmunity, and asthma/allergy; Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the University of California San Francisco and the former Director of the UCSF Diabetes Center. Finally, Dr. Bluestone has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and has received numerous awards for his work including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the recipient of both Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Gerold & Kayla Grodsky Basic Science Award and the Mary Tyler Moore & Robert Levine Excellence in Clinical Research Award.