Rate My Professor David Weiner

David B. Weiner, Ph.D., serves as Executive Vice President and Director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center at The Wistar Institute, holding the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Distinguished Professorship in Cancer Research within the Genome Regulation and Cell Signaling Program. He is also Professor Emeritus of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Weiner obtained his B.S. in Biology from Stony Brook University in 1978, M.S. in Biology from the University of Cincinnati in 1985, and Ph.D. in Developmental Biology focusing on molecular immunology from the University of Pennsylvania College of Medicine in 1986. His career began as an Immunology Research Fellow in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, where he advanced to Professor, co-chair of the Tumor Virology Program at the Abramson Cancer Center, and chair of the Gene Therapy and Vaccine Training Program. He held a joint appointment at The Wistar Institute from 1990 to 1993 before joining full-time.

Weiner leads a translational molecular immunology research team developing novel immunotherapies for disease prevention and treatment using synthetic nucleic acid technologies, including DNA vaccines and nucleic acid-encoded antibodies (dMAbs). His laboratory conducted the first clinical studies of DNA vaccines, demonstrating their safety and immunogenicity, and has advanced vaccines against Zika, MERS, Ebola, HIV, malaria, Lassa virus, and tuberculosis, as well as immunotherapies for HPV-associated cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, prostate cancer, liver cancer, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and glioblastoma. Key publications include 'Safety and Immunogenicity of an Anti-Zika Virus DNA Vaccine – Preliminary Report' (N Engl J Med, 2017), 'Safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of VGX-3100, a therapeutic synthetic DNA vaccine targeting human papillomavirus 16 and 18 E6 and E7 proteins for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2/3' (Lancet, 2015), and 'An engineered bispecific DNA-encoded IgG antibody protects against Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a pneumonia challenge model' (Nat Commun, 2017). The laboratory has produced over 500 scientific papers and more than 70 patents. Weiner has earned awards such as American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (2011), International Society for Vaccines Fellow (2012) and President (2018-2020), NIH Director’s Translational Research Award (2011), and Pennsylvania Drug Industry Award in Scientific Excellence (2022).