The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Carl H. June, M.D., Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, department of pathology and laboratory medicine; director, translational research program, Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Speaker bio(s)

The field of adoptive cell transfer (ACT) is currently comprised of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) and T cell receptors (TCR) engineered T cells and has emerged from principles of basic immunology to paradigm-shifting clinical immunotherapy. These clinical advances are poised to enter mainstream medicine. The adoptive transfer of T cells engineered to express artificial receptors that target cells of choice is an exciting new approach for cancer, and holds equal promise for chronic infection and autoimmunity. Using the principles of synthetic biology, advances in immunology and genetic engineering have made it possible to generate human T cells that display desired specificities and enhanced functionalities. In particular, clinical trials in patients with advanced B cell leukemias and lymphomas treated with CD19-specific CAR T cells have induced durable remissions in adults and children, leading to optimism that this approach will be useful for treating common solid tumors. The prospects for the widespread availability of engineered T cells have changed dramatically given the recent entry of the pharmaceutical industry to this arena.

 

The June laboratory has been dedicated to developing new forms of T cell based therapies for nearly two decades. They have discovered several principles of lymphocyte costimulation. Using these basic findings, they have developed a cell culture system that was tested for the first-in-human evaluation of CAR using T cells modified with gamma retroviruses and for immune regeneration in AIDS patients. They have conducted the first clinical evaluation of lentiviruses as a vector to modify T cells, initially in HIV and then in cancer patients with advanced leukemia. They have shown that adoptive transfer cellular therapies are exportable, as we have conducted the only randomized two-center evaluation of adoptive T cell transfer in cancer patients.

 

Dr. June received his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in 1979. His residency was in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and his fellowship was in oncology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He was a professor in the department of medicine of the Uniformed Services before joining The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1995.

 

Dr. June's awards include the Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, the Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science, the Steinman Award for Human Immunology Research, the Richard V. Smalley Award and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom to Discover Award, among others. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Open to

Public

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Linda Hanssler(opens in new window)

Phone

(212) 327-7714(opens in new window)

Sponsor

Linda Hanssler
(212) 327-7714(opens in new window)
lhanssler@rockefeller.edu(opens in new window)

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=3848(opens in new window)