Ellen Vitetta

Ellen S. Vitetta is the director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Background Vitetta earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Connecticut College and advanced degrees at New York University Medical and Graduate Schools. Career Vitetta is a professor of microbiology and immunology, the director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center, and holds both the Sheryle Simmons Patigian Distinguished Chair in Cancer Immunobiology and a distinguished teaching chair at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She has published 500 papers, edited several books, and is a co-inventor on 24 issued patents. She is recognized as one of the top 100 most cited biomedical scientists in the world. Vitetta is an immunologist who conducts translational ("bench to bedside") research. Along with her colleagues, she was the first to describe IgD on the surface of murine B cells and co-discovered Interleukin-4. Her research group demonstrated that IL-4 acted as a "switch" factor for Ig on B cells. Over the past two decades, she has developed antibody-based "biological missiles" to target and eliminate cancer cells and cells infected with HIV. These innovative therapeutics have been extensively studied in tissue culture, animal models, and, since 1988, in over 300 human subjects. In 2001, Dr. Vitetta successfully developed a vaccine against ricin, which underwent evaluation in the first clinical trial of its kind.