Ana De Jesus-Acosta, MD

Dr. Lipson is an internationally-recognized skin cancer and immunotherapy specialist at Johns Hopkins. He received his medical degree in 2005 from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where he graduated with distinction in research. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed a Medical Oncology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.Dr. Lipson leads cutting edge clinical trials for patients with melanoma and other skin cancers. As a member of the Johns Hopkins Melanoma and Cancer Immunology Programs, he focuses on evaluating novel therapies for patients with high-risk or advanced disease. Dr. Lipson’s publications include the first reports of organ transplant recipients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors for advanced cancer, and the first description of kidney retransplantation performed after immunotherapy–related organ rejection. Based on his published work, Dr. Lipson initiated a clinical trial testing a novel combination of immune-based therapies for kidney transplant recipients with advanced selected cancers. Results from this trial - the first of its kind - were reported in 2022 at an international oncology meeting.Dr. Lipson is a leader in the clinical development of relatlimab, an antibody blocking the LAG-3 immune checkpoint. He leads a phase 2 trial testing combination immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy—including anti-LAG-3—for patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma. In June 2021, Dr. Lipson presented findings from the first phase 3 study establishing the LAG-3 pathway as the third immune checkpoint pathway in history, after CTLA-4 and PD-1, for which blockade has clinical benefit. This trial supported the FDA's approval of a new therapy for patients with advanced melanoma.In addition to his research activities, Dr. Lipson is an educator in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Many of his lectures focus on the management of immune-mediated drug toxicities associated with novel cancer drugs. Dr. Lipson conducts regular clinical practices in Baltimore, Maryland and at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. as part of the multidisciplinary Melanoma Program at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Jean Hoffman-Censits is a genitourinary cancer specialist in Baltimore, caring for patients with urothelial cancers of the bladder and upper tract. She serves as co-leader of the Women’s Bladder Cancer Program in the Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.Dr. Hoffman-Censits received her undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Trinity College. She earned her M.D. degree from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. She completed her residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and performed a fellowship in hematology and oncology at Temple University Medical Center. She joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2018.Dr. Hoffman-Censits's research interests focus on urothelial cancers. Her clinical research has helped identify urothelial cancer sub-types and establish new treatments for bladder and upper tract urothelial cancers.She is a member of the American Medical Association, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Urological Association and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Dr. Neeha Zaidi is a physician scientist and a medical oncologist, caring for patients with pancreatic and colorectal cancers.Dr. Zaidi received her undergraduate degree (Magna Cum Laude) in Biology from Cornell University and earned her M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine where she graduated with Distinction in Research. During medical school, she spent a year as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University studying dendritic cell vaccines. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Weill Cornell and subsequently received an Intramural Research Training Award to perform a year-long post-doctoral fellowship at the Vaccine Research Center (NIAID) at the NIH. She then completed a fellowship in medical oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Zaidi joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2019.Dr. Zaidi’s laboratory focuses on developing novel personalized immunotherapy approaches for the treatment and prevention of pancreatic cancer.Dr. Zaidi has most recently been recognized with an ASCO Career Development Award and a NCI K08 Award.