Alena Gros Vidal is a Group Leader at the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Group in the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO).Alena trained in Biology and obtained a PhD in Genetics in 2009 from the University of Barcelona. After that, she undertook a 7-year postdoctoral fellowship at the NCI with Steven A. Rosenberg, one of the pioneers in the field of Cancer Immunotherapy. In 2016 she was appointed to lead the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Group at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO, Barcelona). For the last 15 years, her research has focused on understanding the native antitumor T-cell response in cancer patients and its molecular determinants to design more effective T-cell therapies for the treatment of solid cancers. Her scientific contributions to the cancer immunology and immunotherapy field are well recognized, as reflected in the citation of her work (49 publications, >11,000 citations, and H-index of 35; Google Scholar 2025). Her research has advanced the identification of biomarkers to detect and potentially exploit the personalized repertoire of neoantigen- and tumor-reactive lymphocytes residing in the tumor and in the peripheral blood of cancer patients. She also participated significantly in developing tools to better understand and exploit the native antitumor T cell response in cancer patients such as screening methods to detect, isolate, and clone tumor- and neoantigen-reactive TCRs from tumor-resident TIL and blood and to identify their cognate antigens. Her appointment at VHIO launched the Cell Therapy Program, currently one of the strategic focuses of the center. Within this program, her contributions have been instrumental in designing and translating personalized T-cell therapies at VHIO, including three ongoing clinical studies and two additional that were recently authorized by the Spanish Regulatory Agency (AEMPS). Her research has led to 10 patents and several licenses, underscoring the competitivity of her research program and their strength at translating potentially transformative new T cell therapies to patients, directly impacting patient lives.