Dr. Quezada earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the P. Universidad Católica de Chile and a Ph.D. from Dartmouth Medical School in the US, where his research focused on the mechanisms for the induction of transplantation tolerance. Working with Prof Randy Noelle at Dartmouth, Dr. Quezada developed a model to study anti-CD154 graft tolerance and made several fundamental contributions to the understanding of the immune regulation and mechanisms of transplantation rejection and tolerance.
In 2004, Dr. Quezada joined the laboratory of Dr. James Allison at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he has carried out postdoctoral research aimed at understanding the mechanisms governing anti-tumor T-cell immunity and how these mechanisms can be manipulated for the generation of potent anti-tumor immune responses. In November 2011, Dr. Quezada joined the University College London Cancer Institute in the United Kingdom as head of the Immune Regulation and Tumor Immunotherapy group. His research group at UCL focuses in the study of the mechanism of action of anti-CTLA-4, anti-PD-1 and other immune-modulatory antibodies targeting co-inhibitory and co-stimulatory pathways (including ICOS, 4-1BB, OX-40) and used as novel anticancer therapies. In the last years, through a number of clinical collaborations, his team gained significant expertise in the characterisation and interrogation of immune reactivity and function within the microenvironment of different human cancers including melanoma, lung and kidney cancers.
Dr. Quezada was a Cancer Research Institute Fellow from 2005 to 2008 and has been the recipient of Dartmouth’s John W. Strohbern Medal for excellence in biomedical research, the Cancer Research Institute (USA) New Investigator Award and a Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellowship. Most recently he was awarded with a Cancer Research UK Senior Cancer Research Fellowship.