Barbara Savoldo MD, PhD

Barbara Savoldo, MD, PhD, joined the UNC Department of Pediatrics on March 2nd in a joint appointment as the Assistant Director of the Lineberger Cancer Center Immunotherapy Program. Dr. Savoldo joins us from the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where she was promoted from post-doc through Associate Professor, in the Texas Children’s Cancer Center, while completing her PhD. Prior to her time in Texas, Dr. Savoldo completed medical school and her hematology fellowship at the University of Parma, Italy.

Dr. Savoldo has professional interests in the preclinical development of cancer immunotherapy approaches for hematological and solid tumors. She is highly interested in gene modification of T cells to redirect them to tumors by transgenic expression of alpha-betaTCRs or of chimeric tumor-specific receptors (CARs), in particular for hematological malignancies such as CD19+ leukemia/lymphomas and CD30+ Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In addition to continue on preclinical studies, currently she is focused on providing support in writing protocols and beginning the implementation of T-cell clinical trials by developing standard operating procedures and helping coordinate the T-cell procedures in the Lineberger GMP facility.