Olivera Finn, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Immunology and Surgery and Founding Chair of the Department of ImmunologyCharity: V Foundation for Cancer Research Dr. Finn is University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Professor of Immunology and Surgery and Founding Chair of the Department of Immunology, the position she held from 2001 to 2013. She was Program Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute from 1991 to 2014. She is the discoverer of the MUC1 tumor antigen and has published extensively and continuously for the last 25 years on her basic and preclinical work on the development and evaluation of MUC1 cancer vaccines. She has been a co-investigator on a dozen clinical trials of various MUC1 vaccines in pancreatic, colon, breast, prostate and lung cancer. Dr. Finn and her team also identified cyclin B1 as a tumor antigen and published several papers on its excellent potential as a cancer vaccine.  Her current efforts are on the development of preventative c