Luis Álvarez-Vallina

Luis Álvarez-Vallina

Luis Álvarez-Vallina, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist pioneer in cancer immunotherapy and cellular engineering. Following his training in Immunology and a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge under the mentorship of Richard Hawkins and Nobel Laureate Sir Gregory Winter, he contributed to the development of first-generation chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) incorporating CD28 costimulatory domains. He currently serves as Research Director at Banc de Sang i Teixits (BST, Barcelona), leads the Advanced Therapies Program at Hospital del Mar Research Institute (HMRIB, Barcelona), and heads the CNIO–HMRIB Cancer Immunotherapy Unit at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO, Madrid). His research focuses on translational cancer immunotherapy, multispecific antibody engineering, and T-cell redirection strategies. He is the inventor of the trimerbody platform, a versatile multivalent antibody format, and the pioneer of the STAb-T (Secreting T-cell-redirecting bispecific Antibodies) platform, based on engineered immune cells that continuously secrete bispecific T-cell engagers (TCEs) in vivo. This innovative approach is currently being evaluated in Phase I clinical trials for patients with hematological malignancies.