Sandra Demaria MD

Sandra Demaria, a native of Turin, Italy, obtained her M.D. from the University of Turin, and moved to the US for her post-doctoral training in immunology as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund awardee, followed by a residency in pathology at NYU School of Medicine. She remained on the faculty at NYU until 2015 and is currently Professor of Radiation Oncology and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

Dr. Demaria is internationally known for her studies demonstrating the synergy of radiotherapy with immunotherapy. She was the first to show that radiotherapy can convert tumors unresponsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors into responsive ones, a finding now translated into patients. Her lab has a central interest in addressing the molecular mechanisms that regulate radiation’s ability to generate an in situ tumor vaccine. As a breast cancer pathologist, Dr. Demaria also studies the immunological microenvironment of breast cancer in patients, and therapeutic strategies to improve it.