Michel Sadelain Elected to National Academy of Medicine
Michel W. Sadelain, director of the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy and Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Medicine, was elected this year to the National Academy of Medicine.
Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
Sadelain was elected for pioneering scientific studies spanning more than 25 years that laid the groundwork for chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) immunotherapy for cancer and for advancing its clinical application.
CAR-T therapy reprograms a sample of a patient’s own T cells into “living drugs” that can target and destroy tumor cells or other harmful cells that cause disease.
Among other contributions, Sadelain identified CD19 as a potential CAR target and, with his team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, provided the first demonstration that CAR-T cells targeting CD19 were effective against B cell malignancies in mice and against relapsed, refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia in patients.
Sadelain joined Columbia University in 2024.
CAR-T therapy has been transformative for certain blood cancers and holds great promise for the treatment of other cancers and pathologies.
Hundreds of CAR-T therapies—mostly for cancer, but increasingly for other conditions including autoimmune and neurological disorders—are currently in development around the world.
Sadelain has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine of France.
He has received the Breakthrough Prize for Life Sciences, Canada Gairdner International Award, Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Outstanding Achievement Award, Leopold Griffuel Award, INSERM International Prize, Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, Passano Laureate, Pasteur Weizmann/Servier Prize at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, Cancer Research Institute Coley Award, Merkin Prize, King Faisal Prize, Broermann Medical Innovation Award, among other honors.