Sergio Lira, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine,  Immunology Institute, Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 

Dr. Sergio Lira received his MD from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Brazil (1982) and his PhD in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego (1988). He did his postdoctoral training at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ. After his postdoctoral training he worked for 11 years in the pharmaceutical sector, first at Bristol-Myers Squibb (1992-1996) and then at Schering-Plough (1996-2002). Dr. Lira joined Mount Sinai in 2002 as the Irene Diamond Associate Professor of Immunology. In 2007 he became the co-Director of the Immunology Institute (with Dr. Lloyd Mayer), and in 2013 was promoted to Director, a position he occupied until 2016. He is currently The Leona M. and Harry B. Hemsley Charitable Trust Professor of Immunology. His research focuses on the role of immune cells and the microbiome in mucosal inflammation and cancer. He has organized international meetings in this field, including the 2003 Keystone Symposium on Chemokines, the 2006 Gordon Research Conference on Chemotactic Cytokines, and the 2012 Keystone Symposium on Chemokines and Leukocyte Trafficking. He was elected to the Henry Kunkel Society in 2006 and to the Association of American Physicians in 2008.  He is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of NCI (2013-2019).