Biography: Grant McFadden (Professor, Arizona State University)

Dr. Grant McFadden is one of the top global leaders in oncolytic viruses with a specialization in pox viruses, including myxoma. Grant is a Founder, Research Advisor & Director of Oncomyx Therapeutics which is developing oncolytic immunotherapies based on the myxoma virus (MYXV) platform to orchestrate an immune response and treat cancer. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2005 and the American Academy of Microbiology in 2007. Dr. McFadden is currently a Professor at Arizona State University and is the Director of the Biodesign Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines, and Virotherapy (B-CIVV). He is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal PLoS Pathogens, a Senior Editor at Journal of Molecular Therapy – Oncolytics and was the President of the American Society for Virology 2015-16. Grant’s lab studies how poxviruses that cause immunosuppression interact with the host immune system. The McFadden lab pioneered the field of viral immune subversion (also called “anti-immunology”) and is credited with the discovery of a wide spectrum of virus-derived inhibitors of the immune system. His lab also investigates host-virus tropism, and the deployment of poxviruses for oncolytic virotherapy for the treatment of cancer, particularly with a rabbit-specific poxvirus called myxoma virus (MYXV). Grant has published over 340 scientific papers and reviews. He earned a BSc and PhD in Biochemistry from McGill University.