David B. Weiner
VerifiedUniversity of Pennsylvania · Rehabilitation Medicine
Active 1959–2025
About
David B. Weiner, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on Molecular Immunology, specifically the development of gene-based vaccines, immune therapies, and molecular interventions for human and animal diseases. He is a pioneer in the field of DNA vaccines, having been one of the first to move DNA vaccines into human clinical studies, establishing their safety and immunogenicity. His work includes the development of DNA vaccines for infectious diseases and cancers, with notable contributions to HIV immune therapy and cancer immunotherapy, including studies on cervical cancer. Dr. Weiner's laboratory has developed new vectors and delivery approaches that have revitalized interest in DNA vaccines, and he holds more than 50 patents related to his work. He actively teaches and trains students, fellows, and junior faculty, chairs the Gene Therapy and Vaccines Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-directs the Tumor Virology Program at the Abramson Cancer Center.
Research topics
- Biology
- Virology
- Immunology
- Medicine
- Cancer research
Selected publications
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>Therapeutic myeloid Rb targeting changes the composition of immune cell populations in the ascites of ID8-bearing mice and preferentially affects M2 type polarized macrophages.</p>
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>Therapeutic myeloid Rb targeting preferentially affects macrophages, but not tumor cells and demonstrates the effects different from CDK4/6 palbociclib inhibitor.</p>
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>Therapeutic Rb targeting delays tumor growth in various ovarian cancer models and demonstrates the effects non-redundant to CDK4/6 palbociclib inhibitor.</p>
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>The effect of HDAC inhibitors on Rb-HDAC1 interaction.</p>
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>Targeting the LxCxE cleft pocket of Rb protein with AP-3-84 modulates its interactions with the adaptor proteins.</p>
Notch2 signaling instructs viral and bacterial TLR responsiveness in B cells
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-10-12
preprintOpen accessMarginal zone (MZ) B cells are hyperresponsive to bacterial Toll-like Receptor (TLR) ligands. However, the full extent of TLR responsiveness for MZ B cells and the mechanisms regulating such responses are unclear. We report that Notch2 activation establishes MZ B cell responsiveness for the viral dsRNA receptor TLR3 and augments responses for the LPS receptor TLR4. Notch2 ligation accelerated Myc induction, mitosis, and plasma cell differentiation to LPS. Further, TLR3 expression in MZ B cells was Notch2 dependent, and ectopic Notch2 signaling was sufficient to promote robust TLR3 responsiveness dependent on the TIR-domain-containing adapter TRIF and the kinase BTK. TLR3 engagement in MZ B cells promoted proliferation, differentiation, and the secretion of IgG2b and IgG2c antibodies. Our results establish a novel role for Notch2 in establishing TLR3 and TLR4 responsiveness in B cells and suggest that MZ B cells play unappreciated roles in immunity against RNA viruses.
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>Graphical abstract.</p>
2025-11-03
articleOpen access<p>M0/M1/M2 signature genes</p>
Siglecs in immunotherapy: current clinical landscape and prospects
Trends in Pharmacological Sciences · 2025-12-01 · 1 citations
articlenpj Vaccines · 2025-12-13
articleOpen accessDNA vaccines have garnered considerable attention due to their recent success in humans for SARS-CoV-2 and immunotherapy for cancer. However, conventional methods for creating and manufacturing DNA vaccines at-scale are slow and rate-limiting for timely response. Herein, we introduce a rapid and completely synthetic workflow that harnesses enzymes to create bulk DNA from a sequence text file. This synthetic workflow termed Enzymatic DNA Synthesis & Rolling-Circle Amplification (EDS-RCA) leverages multiple enzymes to print DNA oligos and assemble them into genes prior to cloning into circular constructs for rolling-circle amplification (RCA). We show that the resulting EDS-RCA DNA elicits comparable vaccine immunogenicity as standard plasmid format, despite the DNA being a large concatemeric repeat. The EDS-RCA method generated the hemagglutinin gene of H1N1 at a mean per-base error rate as low as ~1 mutation every 10,000 bases and, upon DNA vaccination, elicited strong antibody and cellular immune responses. Skin delivery of EDS-DNA using gene gun facilitated striking vaccine dose-sparing capabilities in comparison to intramuscular electroporation methods. In total, DNA vaccines produced by EDS-RCA are immunogenic and amenable to numerous delivery-modalities with preclinical mouse models and could offer an alternative for rapid scale-up of DNA vaccines for future human use.
Recent grants
NIH · $3.0M · 2016
NIH · $1.1M · 1999
NIH · $314k · 2010
NIH · $938k · 2014
NIH · $4.6M · 2005
Frequent coauthors
- 198 shared
William V. Williams
- 176 shared
Kar Muthumani
- 169 shared
Jean Boyer
- 155 shared
Kenneth E. Ugen
- 149 shared
Jian Yan
Air Force Medical University
- 131 shared
Niranjan Y. Sardesai
- 118 shared
Matthew P. Morrow
Inovio Pharmaceuticals (United States)
- 96 shared
Amir Sada Khan
Labs
D.B. Weiner LaboratoryPI
Education
PhD, Biology
University of Cincinnati
M.S., Biology
University of Cincinnati
- 1988
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Pathology
University of Pennsylvania
- 1978
B.S., Biology
SUNY at Stony Brook
Awards & honors
- CFAR - Developmental Core Pilot Project Grant Review, Univer…
- More than 50 patents on his laboratory’s work
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