Dario AA Vignali, Ph.D.

Dario AA Vignali, PhD is the Chair, Distinguished Professor and the Frank Dixon Chair in Cancer Immunology in the Immunology Department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also Associate Director for Scientific Strategy and Co-Leader of the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program in the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the AAI. His research focuses on molecular and cellular aspects of negative regulatory immune mechanisms including regulatory T cells, inhibitory receptors, and immunomodulatory cytokines. His lab was instrumental in uncovering the role of LAG3 in mouse models of cancer, tolerance, autoimmunity and immune regulation. His lab discovered the inhibitory cytokine IL35 and the NRP1:SEMA4A axis, which are key regulators of intratumoral Treg stability and function. His current research extensively uses systems immunology approaches to understand transcriptional regulation of effector T cell exhaustion and regulatory T cell function and fate in murine models of cancer and autoimmunity, and numerous human tumors. He has been a Highly Cited Researcher (top 1% by citations; Clarivate Analytics) for the last ten years (2016-2026) and has published ~257 papers with 52 as senior or co-author in high impact journals (IF>10). He has a strong record of extramural funding, which currently includes an NIH P01, R35, R01 grants and two SPORE projects. His innovative, discovery-based research has led to 15 patent awards (11 in the US) and 11 pending patent applications worldwide, and he is a co-founding scientist of several companies (Potenza Therapeutics [sold to Astellas], Tizona Therapeutics [sold to Gilead], Novasenta/ai3.Bio). Lastly, he is co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Training Program (NCI T32), and has trained, or currently training, 57 postdoctoral research or clinical fellows and 17 graduate students, with several successfully obtaining extramural fellowships (20 total), emphasizing his commitment to train the next generation of immunologists.