NIH’s Steven Rosenberg and John O’Shea Elected to National Academy of Inventors

Original Story: NIH Inventors Elected to National Academy of Inventors (Jan. 2026 NIH Technology Transfer Community Newsletter), by Richelle Holnick, OTT

Two National Institutes of Health (NIH) inventors — Dr. Steven Rosenberg and Dr. John O’Shea — have been chosen as 2025 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows, the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.

Rosenberg is the Chief of the Surgery Branch at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute. He is often regarded as “the father of cancer immunotherapy,” as he began working on immunotherapy in the 1970s when little was known about how T lymphocyte cells function in cancer. T lymphocytes, or T cells, are specialized white blood cells in the immune system that protect the body from infections and cancer.

In the late 1980s, Rosenberg began working on advancing the usage of T cells as immunotherapy. He focused specifically on the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells (FLC Labs in Action video on CAR T cells), which refer to a patient’s own immune cells that are genetically engineered to destroy cancer cells. His work resulted in multiple patents that are foundational in the CAR T space. Rosenberg pioneered the development of immunotherapy that has resulted in the first effective immunotherapies for selected patients with advanced cancer.

His studies also resulted in the approval by the Food and Drug Administration of treatments for patients with metastatic melanoma and renal cancer. Among many other professional achievements, Rosenberg pioneered the development of gene therapy and was the first to successfully insert foreign genes into humans. He holds nearly 900 patents, has published more than 1,200 papers, and has co-authored more than 30 books. Rosenberg’s body of work over several decades has resulted in life-saving treatments for an untold number of patients suffering from cancers.

O’Shea is a Senior Investigator and Chief of the Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch of the NIH National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. He is a leading inventor in the field of cytokine signal transduction, or the process by which proteins regulate immunity and inflammation in the body.

More specifically, O’Shea has played a leading part in dissecting the role of the Janus kinases (JAKs) and signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) family transcription in immunoregulation. JAK inhibitors are used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and alopecia.

O’Shea discovered and cloned the JAK3 gene, which is essential for making a protein critical for the normal development and function of the immune system, and demonstrated its role in the source of diseases like Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, better known as SCID. He also identified the role of STAT3 in Job syndrome, which is a rare, chronic immune disorder that can lead to recurring infections, severe eczema, and distinctive facial features. Thanks to the work of O’Shea’s lab, there are now 11 approved JAK inhibitors for multiple forms of arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, dermatologic disorders, and COVID-19.