Theresa Whiteside's Biography

Theresa Whiteside, Professor, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Whiteside received both her MA and PhD degree in Microbiology from Columbia
University, New York, NY. She became a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical
Laboratory Immunology in 1979. She spent a year (1984-85) working at the Ludwig Institute for
Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland as a Fogarty Senior International Fellow. At the
University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Whiteside rose through the faculty ranks to become Associate
Professor (1979) and Professor of Pathology (1989-present). In 1986 she became a member of
the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and was appointed Director of the Immunologic
Monitoring and Diagnostic Laboratory a position she held until stepping down in July 2010. In
recognition of her research achievements in the biology of head and neck cancer, Dr. Whiteside
was granted secondary appointments as Professor of Otolaryngology and Professor of
Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Dr. Whiteside’s research interests are in Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy with special
focus on mechanisms of tumor-induced immunosuppression, cytokine networks, development of
anticancer vaccines, immunology of human head and neck cancer and the role of natural
immunity in the control of cancer progression. Her research is in mechanisms of tumor escape
from the host immune system and the development of therapies designed to eliminate tumor
escape. Currently she is investigating the role of regulatory T cells in cancer progression as well
as contributions of tumor-derived microvesicles (MV) to apoptosis of CD8+ effector cells in the
peripheral circulation of patients with cancer and in the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Whiteside
is also interested in dendritic cells (DC) as vehicles for delivering tumor antigens to T cells. She
is investigating components of antigen processing machinery (APM) in human DC with an
objective of defining and optimizing conditions for optimal antigen processing and crosspresentation.
She is a recognized expert in immune monitoring of patients with cancer. She has
authored 505 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and 118 chapters and review
articles. She is the author of a book on human tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and co-editor of
several scientific books. Over the years, she has trained over 80 post-doctoral fellows from the
United States and abroad.
Since 2002, she has served on numerous NIH and DOD study sections, and is a past member of
the Board of Scientific Counselors for NIDCR. She is a member of numerous journal editorial
boards and a scientific reviewer for many other scientific journals.