Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, is the inaugural director of the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy and director of the Cancer Cell Therapy Initiative in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Dr. Sadelain is a globally recognized pioneer of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) immunotherapy, a revolutionary approach to cancer treatment. Prior to his Columbia appointment, Sadelain was the founding director of the Center for Cell Engineering at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) where he led the development of CAR-T cells targeting CD19, a unique marker found in certain blood cancer cells. After conceiving CAR molecules and identifying this target, he and his team established genetic engineering and cell manufacturing capabilities required to translate their research into clinical applications, starting with refractory leukemias in 2007. The first CAR-T therapies were approved by the FDA in 2017, ushering a new class of drugs based on T-cell engineering.