Ana Anderson, PhD

Dr. Ana Anderson is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Scientist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and core faculty member of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases.

Her laboratory identified the inhibitory molecule Tim-3 as a key regulator of T cell dysfunction in cancer. Prior to working in the field of cancer immunology, Dr. Anderson worked in the field of autoimmunity. Dr. Anderson has published over 47 original papers, 13 reviews, and 5 book chapters. Her work on T cell cross-reactivity in autoimmunity was selected by Nature Immunology as a ‘Classic Paper in Autoimmunity’.

She has also had several papers selected as either ‘must-read’ or ‘recommended’ by the Faculty of 1000. Dr. Anderson is on the editorial board for OncoImmunology, Cellular Immunology, and Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. She served on the scientific advisory board for CoStim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Novartis for their immunotherapy programs.

She currently serves on the scientific advisory boards for Potenza Therapeutics, Tizona Therapeutics, and Idera Pharmaceuticals. As the suppressed immune response in cancer is a good counter point to the active immune response present in autoimmunity, her research focus integrates well with her previous research expertise.

Dr. Anderson was born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Miami, Florida. She obtained her B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology in 1993 from the University of Miami, where she graduated summa cum laude. She obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University in 1999. During her Ph.D. she was awarded a fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.