Francesco M. Marincola, M.D., FACS, is the inaugural Chief Research Officer of Sidra Medical and Research Center. Dr. Marincola leads the development of Sidra’s research capabilities to help create a center of excellence for research focusing on medical conditions, epidemiology and issues that primarily afflict the people of the Arab world, including diabetes, cancer and fetal-maternal health.​

Previously, Dr. Marincola held the positions of Chief of the Infectious Disease and Immunogenetics Section (IDIS) and Tenured Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Health (NIH). He was also Director or the Immunogenetics Program, Department of Transfusion Medicine, Director of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) Center for Excellence and Co-Director of the Trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology. He is President of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer and President of the International Society for Translational Medicine.

​In 2003, Dr. Marincola founded the Journal of Translational Medicine and is currently its Editor-in-Chief; he is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Translational Medicine and Genetic Medicine; U.S. Senior Editor of Immunotherapy; Associate Editor for The Journal of Immunotherapy, Tumori, and Clinical Cancer Research. He is also Adjunct Professor at Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China; First Military Medical University, Tonghe, Guangzhou, China; Shenzhen Institute of Xiangxya Biomedicine, Shenzhen, China and Universidad del Rosario, Bogota, Colombia. 

​He is the author of more than 500 peer-reviewed research articles and his work has been cited more than 16,000, times with an average of 1,200 citations per year and an H index of 63. He has been invited to speak at over 300 national and international meetings. Dr. Marincola is the second most cited scientist in the field of melanoma during the last ten years, with 55 papers cited 3,704 times to date.