What started as a week-long international course aimed at teaching the latest developments in immunotherapies—and initially available only to immunology and oncology students from the three universities—has vastly expanded. Today, their reach has grown from 3 to 82 countries, attracting more than 2,000 participants, according to a revelatory summary of this innovative program that was highlighted in Nature Reviews Immunology in 2024.
Dr. Merad is Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute, Mount Sinai Professor of Immunology, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, and Dean for Translational Research and Therapeutic Innovation at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Miriam Merad, MD, PhD
The fundamental mission of the Immunoschool team is to teach clinicians and basic scientists how to harness immune knowledge to target and prevent diseases effectively. “We aim to help attendees realize the potential of the immune system as a source of therapeutic targets, fostering innovative thinking towards new immunotherapy drugs and modalities,” the paper’s authors wrote.
In 2025, Immunoschool hosted a themed three-day course, “Decade of Immunotherapy Discoveries,” to commemorate their progress. The course featured a dozen renowned experts in the field of immunology and immunotherapy, each sharing groundbreaking work, and providing live interactions with postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and junior faculty from four continents. "The 2025 edition was a remarkable showcase of the extraordinary impact of immunology on the treatment of major human diseases," says Dr. Merad.
Immunoschool, the authors wrote, “extends the opportunities for training beyond traditional graduate-school programmes, in-person or online conferences, and online immunology seminar initiatives, to inspire physicians and scientists worldwide to engage with immunotherapy. We believe that local experts will be instrumental in shaping the next generation of patient cohort and field studies, accounting for the remarkable diversity of human immune systems, genomic variability, and overlooked rare and local immune mediated diseases. This shift aims to propel immunology away from its current Western focus towards a more global outlook.”
For more than two decades, Dr. Merad has been making fundamental discoveries identifying the origin of myeloid cell subtypes and elucidating how they modulate anti-tumor immunity. Her research has contributed greatly to making these cells a promising path for the development of new cancer therapies. In 2025, she was presented with the Sjöberg Prize, which is awarded in partnership with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Sjöberg Foundation.
“Miriam Merad is a pioneer in the rapidly growing field of cancer immunotherapy,” says Thomas Perlmann, PhD, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and chair of the Sjöberg Prize Committee. “Her research on myeloid cells is a breakthrough, one which has great potential as a foundation for the development of new cancer therapies.”