Dr. Daniel Powell Jr. is Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Scientific Director of Immunotherapy in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Powell’s research focuses on solid tumor immunobiology and translational immunotherapy. Among his contributions to the field, he is recognized for his role in defining the association between T cell persistence and response to adoptive T cell therapy, the association between T cell differentiation and T cell persistence after infusion, the identification of biomarkers for tumor-specific tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, the role of CD27 in human T cell memory formation, the development of novel universal CAR platforms, autologous humanized patient-derived xenograft models, new agents to deplete immunosuppressive cell subsets in vivo, and the first application of CAR T cell therapy in canine cancer. Dr. Powell maintains a research laboratory that continues to develop innovative immunotherapeutic strategies, with an increasing focus on public neoantigen targeting, gene-engineered TIL therapeutics, and next-generation universal CAR T cell products. Dr. Powell serves on the board of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), as a past mentor in the Department of Defense’s Ovarian Cancer Academy, and as the Director of Education for the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy program at Penn. Dr. Powell also serves on various foundation and industry advisory boards and is the immediate past chair of the NIH’s Cellular Immunotherapy for Cancer (CIC) Study Section.