Eric Smith, MD, PhD, Receives Outstanding New Investigator Award from the American Society of Gene + Cell Therapy

Dr. Smith received the Outstanding New Investigator Award at The American Society of Gene + Cell Therapy (ASGCT), granted each year to a select group of researchers across academia, research foundations/organizations, industry, and government to recognize exemplary achievements in the field of gene and cell therapies, cellular engineering, and related disciplines by persons who have served as active investigators for 10 years or fewer.

Dr. Smith currently serves as director of Research Translation for Immune Effector Cell Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Smith’s primary responsibility at Dana-Farber is principal investigator of a gene and cellular-engineering laboratory. He also serves as faculty director of a unique research group at the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center: Immunotherapy Platform for Antibody and CAR-Therapeutics discovery and Translation (IMPACT).²

One of four recipients in the 2025 awardee cohort, Dr. Smith presented his lecture, “Pushing the Boundaries of CAR-T Cell Therapy for Immunotherapy of Cancer,” at the ASGCT Annual Meeting as part of his award recognition.

“Ongoing work in [our] lab is focused on tackling some of the biggest challenges in the CAR [chimeric antigen receptor] T-cell field, which includes extending CAR T cells to solid tumors, enhancing persistence of cellular therapies, direct in vivo delivery approaches, and the study of the biology of interaction between CAR T cells and disease or microenvironment interactions,” Dr. Smith said in a recent interview. He noted that his lab colleagues were also widely successful at this year’s meeting. “We had four other presentations at ASGCT of some of these advances we are pursuing,” Dr. Smith said.

According to Dr. Smith, he received the New Investigator Award primarily for his work on exploring ways to expand clinical applications for CAR T-cell therapy, particularly in multiple myeloma (MM). “We both identified GPRC5D [G protein–coupled receptor class C group 5 member D] as an attractive target for immunotherapy of MM and were also one of the first groups (in parallel to others) that targeted BCMA [B-cell maturation antigens] with novel CARs,” he explained. “We translated CARs we engineered targeting both these targets into the clinic in collaboration with our critical colleagues in clinical research and manufacturing.” The resulting lead CARs, orvacabtagene autoleucel (orva-cel) and arlocabtagene autoleucel (arlo-cel), are now in trials.

“I am honored to be selected for such an award by a committee of my peers,” Dr. Smith said, adding that close collaboration is key to his success. “We work closely with our clinical scientist colleagues, as we did with Sham Mailankody, MBBS [of Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center], who led the seminal CAR T-cell studies in MM on CARs we developed.”

Active in CAR T-cell therapy research innovation since its infancy, Dr. Smith was attracted to the oncology research field through a research fellowship after first completing training in internal medicine and a PhD in genetic and genomic sciences.

“Medical oncology…drew my interest because it was a rare field where deep relationships are quickly made [with] patients and where the research environment was fast-paced…making tremendous progress,” Dr Smith said. “I was always interested in gene therapies and marrying my research expertise in genetics with opportunities in cancer and immunotherapy.”

After starting his research career at Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, Dr. Smith eventually made the move to Harvard and Dana-Farber to take advantage of  the cutting-edge laboratory facilities and the depth of expertise at these institutions. “[Dana-Farber] is a phenomenal institute with incredible collaborators across many disciplines, including the clinical immune effector cell program,” said Dr. Smith. “There is a fantastic GMP [Good Manufacturing Practices] CAR T-cell production facility and group here.”

Dr. Smith also runs the Eric Smith Lab for Synthetic Biology and Cellular Engineering at DFCI, where he trains and mentors the next generation of gene and cell therapy scientists. Students and research fellows at Smith Lab range from undergraduates through postdoctoral researchers, and he remains deeply involved in their training—even in today’s political era of federal grant cuts. “My advice to those considering entering the field, or those new to science, is to keep going,” he said.

“I feel incredibly fortunate to work with an outstanding lab team with a culture of collaboration, dedication to our dual missions of developing new therapies for patients and advancing the field of immunotherapy, and intellectual curiosity that makes coming to work every day a thrill,” he concluded.