Steven Porcelli is currently Weinstock Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY (USA). Dr. Porcelli received a BA degree in Biology from Columbia University in 1979, and an MD degree from Yale University in 1984. He did postdoctoral training in immunology research with Dr. Michael Brenner at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Since establishing his laboratory at Einstein in 1999, Professor Porcelli and his team have focused on the development of synthetic glycolipid activators of iNKT cells as vaccine adjuvants and agents for immunotherapy. Their studies use primarily mouse and cell culture models to study the mechanisms of CD1-restricted lipid presentation at the molecular and cellular levels. A major goal of their work is to optimize the structure and delivery of glycolipid activators of iNKT cells to promote clinical applications for treatment or prevention of infectious diseases and cancer.