Milan Mrksich, PhD, appointed Associate Director of Translational Research

Milan Mrksich, PhD, has been named Associate Director for Translational Research at the Lurie Cancer Center, effective September 1. In this role, he will oversee the development and coordination of translational science across both the Evanston and Chicago Campuses and drive initiatives to develop new therapies from the laboratory to the clinic.

Dr. Milan Mrksich is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Chemistry and Cell & Developmental Biology. Dr. Mrksich’s research program focuses on the development of next-generation immunotherapies based on his laboratory’s MegaMolecule platform, which enables the precise assembly of multifunctional therapeutic molecules with defined combinations of targeting, immune-modulating, and drug-delivery activities. His work seeks to create new classes of programmable therapeutics that can engage multiple biological pathways simultaneously and provide more potent and selective approaches to treating cancer and other diseases. He has previously served as Associate Director for Research Technology at the Lurie Cancer Center from 2014 to 2019 and Vice President for Research at Northwestern University from 2019 to 2023.

“I am very excited that Milan is going to join our leadership team again," said Leonidas Platanias, MD, PhD, director of the Lurie Cancer Center. "He is an exceptional leader and scientist and will help us in a major way in the next phase of growth of the Lurie Cancer Center”.