Dr. Jedd Wolchok is the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine and a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. His research focuses on identifying new immunotherapy treatments to modulate the immune response to cancer, and on understanding treatment-resistant cancers to help scientists and physicians target available immunotherapies.

As a clinician-scientist, Wolchok’s discoveries have helped to establish immunotherapy as a fundamental approach to cancer treatment. His laboratory is funded as part of the Research Project Grant Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This program focuses on investigating novel immunotherapeutic agents in pre-clinical laboratory models in alignment with the goals of the NIH. 

Wolchok’s research was instrumental in the clinical development leading to the approval of ipilimumab and the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab for advanced melanoma. His pioneering work in immunotherapy for cancer treatment has helped to save and improve the lives of countless cancer patients, and paved the way for new cancer treatments.

Prior to joining the Board of Directors of the Vilcek Foundation, Wolchok served as a juror for the Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. Through his work at the intersection of immunology and oncology, he is uniquely poised to advise the Vilcek Foundation with direction for prizes and program initiatives in science, biotechnology, and medicine. 

Wolchok received his BA degree from Princeton University, and holds MS, PhD, and MD degrees from New York University. As a graduate student at NYU, Dr. Wolchok worked in the laboratory of Vilcek Foundation founder Dr. Jan Vilcek from 1989 through 1993. Vilcek subsequently served as Wolchok’s PhD advisor. Prior to his current position with Weill Cornell Medicine, he was chief of the Immuno-Oncology Service and held the Lloyd J. Old Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

In 2023, Wolchok was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He is an elected member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He is on the Board of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research; Wolchok has also served on the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Wolchok is a full member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and center director for the Parker Institute of Immunotherapy. In addition to his clinical and research practices, he serves as a member of the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award Selection Committee and a mentor with the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.