Steven J. Bensinger
Studies how lipid metabolism shapes innate and adaptive immunity; his lab showed in mice that activated CD8 T cells need SREBP-driven cholesterol and fatty-acid synthesis, switched on through mTOR, in order to grow and divide.
Chair, Department of Immunology and Immune Therapeutics, Keck School of Medicine of USC (since 2025) · Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Personnel, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, and Director, UCLA Lipidomics Laboratory, UCLA · postdoc with Peter Tontonoz, UCLA · PhD in immunology with Laurence Turka, University of Pennsylvania · VMD
Steven Bensinger was senior author of the 2013 Nature Immunology study (KID2013), done at UCLA. Activated mouse T cells switch on cholesterol and fatty-acid synthesis genes within hours, and rapamycin given before stimulation blocked this programme and the processing of the transcription factors SREBP1 and SREBP2. T cells lacking SREBP activity (Scap deletion) could not grow into blasts after activation, and adding cholesterol restored their growth, pointing to cholesterol as the limiting step. In infected mice, these cells produced a weaker virus-specific CD8 T-cell response.
Bensinger trained in veterinary medicine and did his PhD in immunology with Laurence Turka at the University of Pennsylvania, working on regulatory T cells, and then a postdoc with Peter Tontonoz at UCLA on lipid metabolism and T-cell growth. He built his own lab at UCLA, where he directed the UCLA Lipidomics Laboratory, and in September 2025 became chair of the Department of Immunology and Immune Therapeutics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | M | Sterol regulatory element-binding proteins are essential for the metabolic programming of effector T cells and adaptive immunity KID2013 Senior author: mTOR-dependent SREBP activity supplies the cholesterol activated CD8 T cells need to grow and expand (mouse genetics and mouse cells). |
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