Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD

Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, is the inaugural executive director of the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies and a professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson Department of Immunobiology with an additional appointment in the Department of Surgery. He is also a member of the U of A Cancer Center and the BIO5 Institute.

Bhattacharya’s research merges the fields of stem cell biology and immunology to understand the basic biology of lymphocyte development and develop creative translational strategies to combat infectious disease. Bhattacharya was a recipient of the prestigious New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator award in 2012. Bhattacharya’s research has contributed to translational efforts at companies including Gilead Sciences, Sana Biotechnology, Clade Therapeutics and Jasper Therapeutics.

Bhattacharya received his bachelor’s in biochemistry from Indiana University and his doctorate in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied the role of the NF-kB transcription factor in survival and B cell class switching. For his postdoctoral fellowship he trained at Stanford University, studying the cell biology of hematopoietic stem cells and their differentiated progeny. In 2008, he began his own lab at Washington University in St. Louis. Bhattacharya returned in 2017 to his birthplace of Tucson to join the Department of Immunobiology, where his lab continues to study both stem cells and antibody responses to infections and vaccines.