Magnus Hoffmann Honored as 2026 Pew Biomedical Scholar

The Pew Charitable Trusts has selected Gladstone Institutes Investigator Magnus Hoffmann, PhD, to join its 2026 Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. The program, which supports early-career scientists who are pursuing cutting-edge disease research, will provide Hoffmann with four years of funding to advance his work developing cancer vaccines.

“Scientific discovery is moving at a rapid pace, and now more than ever we need curious and creative researchers leading the charge,” says Lee Niswander, PhD, chair of the program’s national advisory committee, in a statement announcing the new scholars. “These new biomedical scholars are prepared to meet that challenge, and I look forward to watching their research unfold.”

By courageously following the science, Magnus has turned his early virus research into an exciting approach to help people live a life without cancer.

Melanie Ott, MD, PhD

Hoffmann is on a mission to harness the immune system to fight disease. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he was working on gene therapies to cure human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at the California Institute of Technology. He soon pivoted his research to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, developing a promising new mRNA vaccine platform. These early efforts have been foundational for his work at Gladstone on cancer vaccines.

Because many cancers are largely unique, current tumor-fighting vaccines must be personalized to each patient, a time-consuming and costly process. So-called “off-the-shelf” cancer vaccines, which would be effective for a larger swath of patients, could reduce costs and accelerate treatment, but they have been difficult to develop.

Hoffmann’s lab is creating a vaccine platform that tricks tumor cells into stimulating the immune system, which would then attack the cancer. Building on prior work in cellular engineering and immune modulation, his lab aims to develop an innovative immunotherapy platform that enhances the natural ability of the immune system to detect and respond to tumor-specific features. This strategy could create immunotherapies that treat many cancers and can be quickly and inexpensively deployed.

“Our scalable approach is designed to promote more effective interactions between tumors and the immune system, enabling targeted anti-tumor responses without the need for individualized vaccine designs,” Hoffmann says. “This work could produce a ‘next generation’ immunotherapeutic platform for treating a wide range of human cancers. Support from the Pew Scholars Program will allow my lab to accelerate our work in this area so we can ultimately use this technology to help patients.”

Hoffmann is one of 21 new Pew Biomedical Scholars chosen from hundreds of applicants nominated by leading academic institutions and researchers throughout the United States. Each scholar receives $300,000 over four years to advance their science. Hoffmann and the rest of the 2026 Pew Scholars join a legacy of over 1,000 scientists who have received awards from Pew since 1985.

“Similar to virally infected cells, tumor cells carry foreign antigens that should activate the immune system, but somehow stay under its radar,” says Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone Infectious Disease Institute, where Hoffmann’s work is centered. “Magnus is pursuing a novel and exciting strategy to overcome this challenge and stimulate the natural clearing of tumors, thus transforming how we will treat many types of cancer in the future. By courageously following the science, Magnus has turned his early virus research into an exciting approach to help people live a life without cancer.”