Dr. Jewett is a professor and the Director of the Tumor Immunology Laboratory in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine at UCLA and on the faculty of the Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology also at the UCLA. She has membership in Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) and is a member of the UCLA Tumor Immunology subgroup. She is well-known nationally and internationally for her contribution to the field of NK biology, tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy. She has received numerous honors and awards and holds memberships in many professional organizations and societies. She has chaired a number of important senate and non-senate committees at UCLA and for the University of California Regents and has been instrumental in shaping the graduate studies for the health professionals at UCLA. Dr. Jewett chairs and teaches several graduate level courses, and her laboratory is sought out by many foreign and domestic scholars who spend several years to receive training in NK studies.

In addition, Dr. Jewett serves on the editorial board of many prestigious journals and has been a reviewer on the board of the National Institute of Health study sections. She holds several patents and has given more than 200 invited lectures and presentations nationally and internationally and has published more than 100 high impact journal articles, reviews, commentaries and book chapters in the field of cancer. She has research collaborations with investigators from China, Slovenia, Mexico, Poland, Germany, Thailand, Japan, Portugal, South Korea and Sweden. She has organized a number of conferences on cancer immunity nationally and internationally. Dr. Jewett has trained more than 150 graduate students and health professionals in her laboratory, many of whom are leaders in their respective institutions. She has served on review panels for grants from many countries including England, France, the Netherlands, Qatar, Poland and Israel. She has received numerous grants, including from the NIH, for her studies. 

One of Dr. Jewett’s major contributions to science and NK cell biology was the identification, characterization and the establishment of the concept of split anergy in NK cells. Equally important was Dr. Jewett’s discovery demonstrating that NK cells were important for the elimination, selection and differentiation of cancer stem cells as well as healthy stem cells. Most recently she has identified, characterized, and patented a novel method to expand and activate or “supercharge” large numbers of NK cells for use as a cellular-based immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer. In addition, she has developed a formulation with probiotic bacteria to prevent and treat cancer patients in combination with the supercharged NK cells.