Dr. Cantor is the Baruj Benacerraf Professor of Immunology in the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School and Department of Cancer Immunology & Virology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  

 

Dr. Cantor received his BA from Columbia University and MD from the New York University School of Medicine followed by fellowship training at the NIH, two years as an NIH Special Fellow at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London, and a residency in medicine at the Stanford University Medical Center before joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

 

He has chaired the Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS at DFCI and the Program in Cancer Immunology and directs NIH postdoctoral training programs in AIDS research and cancer immunology. He received the 2019 Excellence in Mentoring Award from the American Association of Immunologists in recognition of his exemplary career contributions to a future generation of scientists.  

 

Dr. Cantor is a world-renowned immunologist for his studies of the development and immunological function of T lymphocytes. His studies indicated that the thymus gives rise to two major lineages of T cells that recognized the MHC class II and class I molecules and is equipped to mediate distinct immunological functions before overt encounter with antigen. Current studies in the Cantor lab have begun to define a lineage of CD8+ regulatory T cells (Treg) that inhibits the development of autoimmune disease and may regulate antitumor immunity.

 

For his significant contribution in immunology, Dr. Cantor has been elected to several prestigious organizations and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2002) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2010), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005) and Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists (2020).