Steve Dubinett first became interested in lung cancer immunology research while a pulmonary research fellow in the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. There he took part in the first clinical trial using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes to treat patients with cancer. While some of the patients with renal cancer and melanoma had very dramatic anti-tumor responses, the patients with lung cancer did not respond to the therapy. After moving to UCLA in 1988, he began his research program focusing on understanding why lung cancer patients were not responding to immunotherapy. This has led to research related to immunity and inflammation in the early pathogenesis of lung cancer, currently funded by Stand Up to Cancer-LUNGevity-ALA Dream Team in Lung Cancer Interception, the NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network, NCI Early Detection Research Network, NCI Molecular Characterization Laboratory Program, the VA Lung Precision Oncology Program, and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He has trained more than 50-graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty, nearly all of whom have continued in academic or industry research careers. He is the UCLA Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and the Senior Associate Dean for Translational Research for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has led the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute since 2010.