Dr. Sonja Schrepfer, MD/PhD

Dr. Sonja Schrepfer is a physician-scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, which she joined in 2025 after a professorship at the University of California, San Francisco. Her laboratory modifies pluripotent stem cell lines into non-immunogenic cells protected from post-transplant rejection without suppressing the general immune system. She is the inventor of the hypoimmune (HIP) engineering approach and a scientific founder of Sana Biotechnology, where she led the hypoimmune platform. The New England Journal of Medicine later published clinical data from Sana on HIP-modified, insulin-producing islets transplanted with no immunosuppression into a patient with type 1 diabetes. The islets survived, evaded immune detection, and continued to produce insulin at six-month follow-up. That approach underpins SC451, a HIP-modified stem cell derived islet therapy Sana is developing as a one-time treatment. Her central goal is to remove the need for lifelong immunosuppression or encapsulation in cell replacement.

Affiliation

Research Scientist, Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute

Location

Los Angeles, California, U.S.