Padmanee Sharma

Padmanee Sharma is a Senior Professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her research focuses on cancer immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors, cellular therapy, and the tumor immune microenvironment in genitourinary malignancies. Recent breakthroughs include dual phagocytosis-checkpoint blockade in glioblastoma models, a spatial atlas of muscle-invasive bladder cancer revealing lineage-specific vulnerabilities, and phase 1 trials of VISTA-targeting antibodies. She led the CheckMate 650 trial of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and investigates KDM6A-mediated genomic instability in bladder cancer. Her work has been supported by a 2009 CTLA-4 blockade award in prostate cancer therapy.