Sebastian AMIGORENA

Sebastian Amigorena founded and directed until 2021 the Immunology department at Institut Curie. He is currently team leader and head of the Institut Curie Immunotherapy Cancer Center, as well as founder and CSO of Mnemo Therapeutics. Dr. Amigorena graduated at Paris VII University and performed postdoctoral work with Ira Mellman, at Yale School of Medicine. He is member of the French Academy of Sciences and EMBO. He received two Advanced ERC Grants and multiple French and international science awards. Dr. Amigorena’s laboratory made important contributions to immunology and cell biology, including the discovery of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motifs (ITIMs), the identification of phagocytic mechanisms involved in antigen cross presentation in dendritic cells and the role of regulatory T cells in the shaping T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires. More recently, the Amigorena laboratory analyzed the epigenetic control of T cell fates, revealing the role of heterochromatin dynamics in helper T cell functions and effector vs. memory differentiation. The teams at Institut Curie and Mnemo also identified new sources of non-conventional tumor antigens derived from transposable elements and non-canonical splicing. Dr. Amigorena recently initiated collaborative Institut Curie-Mnemo Therapeutics programs for non-canonical tumor target identification and for developing epigenetically re-programed CAR T cells in cancer.