Mikael Pittet

Mikaël Pittet (born May 23, 1975) is a Swiss immunologist whose research focuses on cancer immunology. He is a professor at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), and holder of the ISREC Foundation Chair in immuno-oncology. He is also a full member of the Lausanne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

Education Mikaël Pittet completed his PhD thesis in Immunology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and graduated from University of Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2001. He subsequently moved to Boston, where he pursued postdoctoral research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI).

Career Pittet became assistant professor at HMS in 2006, Associate Professor in 2013, and Full Professor in 2019 (Department of radiology). He was appointed Director of the Cancer immunology program at the center for systems biology in 2016. He was also a member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Immunology Program at Harvard Medical School. and Cancer Immunology Research.

Research Pittet is a widely cited researcher in cancer immunology and cancer immunotherapy, especially in the fields of innate and adaptive immunity, and the roles of myeloid cells in cancer. His research focuses on uncovering how the immune system controls cancer and other diseases and how it can be harnessed for therapy. He is known for utilizing molecular imaging to track immune cells and drugs directly in vivo. Pittet's work has identified how cancers are regulated by various immune cells, including cytotoxic T cells, regulatory T cells, macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils, and dendritic cells. These cells are important regulators of the tumor microenvironment and potential targets for cancer immunotherapy.

Awards and honors Pittet's work has been honored with the 2015 Samana Cay MGH Research Scholarship Award, the 2016 Robert Wenner Award, the 2016 Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research, and the 2017 MGH Mentoring Award. He also received an Honorary Master of Arts Degree from Harvard University in 2019 and is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher based on his multiple papers that rank in the top 1% by citations across fields and during the last decade.

Selected publications