F. Stephen Hodi

F. Stephen Hodi, MD is Director of the Melanoma Disease Center and Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is one of the founding pioneers of modern cancer immunotherapy, best known for leading the pivotal phase III trial that established ipilimumab—a CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibitor—as the first therapy to demonstrate improved overall survival in patients with previously treated metastatic melanoma. That landmark study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010, ushered in the modern era of immune checkpoint blockade in oncology and fundamentally transformed the treatment of advanced melanoma. Dr. Hodi's career-long focus on cancer immunology and the tumor microenvironment has driven a succession of breakthrough contributions. Building on ipilimumab's success, he was a lead investigator in the evaluation of combined CTLA-4 plus PD-1 blockade with nivolumab plus ipilimumab in melanoma, establishing through CheckMate 067 that dual checkpoint inhibition produced higher response rates and longer survival than either agent alone. This combination is now a globally adopted standard for advanced melanoma and has been extended to multiple other tumor types. Dr. Hodi has also contributed pivotal research into the mechanisms of immune-related adverse events, biomarkers of response, and the immune biology underlying durable remissions in melanoma. Beyond melanoma, Dr. Hodi's immunology program at Dana-Farber encompasses neoantigens, T cell exhaustion, microbiome-immune interactions, and combination strategies with targeted agents and radiation. He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, trained generations of immuno-oncology investigators, and serves on the ASCO and SITC guideline panels that shape global melanoma management. His work has been recognized with the most prestigious awards in oncology and immunology.