Prof Thomas Kieber-Emmons

Thomas Kieber-Emmons, PhD., is known for his work on developing peptide mimetics of carbohydrate antigens as vaccines in both the cancer and pathogen areas, and is an acknowledged pioneer in this field. Dr. Kieber-Emmons received a BS in Environmental Engineering Technology from the Florida Institute of Technology and went on for his PhD in Biophysics/Immunology, focusing on computational chemistry and structural immunology, at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute/State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Kieber-Emmons did his post-Doctoral studies in Molecular Immunology at Roswell Park were his research focused on the structural basis for molecular mimicry of antigens. He then moved to Idec Pharmaceuticals (now Biogen-IDEC) in San Diego where he was head of IDEC’s peptide therapeutics program and worked on anti-idiotypic vaccines for lymphoma. He was recruited in 1990 to the Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania. After 12 years in Philadelphia, Dr. Kieber-Emmons was recruited in 2002 to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where he holds the Jossetta Wilkins Chair in Breast Cancer Research, and is Deputy Director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. His group is moving forward with bringing the first structurally designed carbohydrate mimetic peptide into the clinic to prevent breast cancer recurrence in high-risk women, conducting the first GLP safety study at the Cancer Institute.