Carl June

Prof. June is Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Due to his lifelong work on lymphocyte activation, Prof. June is considered a world authority on mechanisms related to immune tolerance and adoptive immunotherapy in the fields of chronic inflammation and cancer. He and his team pioneered the groundbreaking work in immunotherapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia are treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. This CAR-T therapy approach, which trains the immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells, has opened a new era of innovative treatments and personalized medicine for cancer patients.   Prof. June is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, USA, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, where he received his medical degree. Prof. June also completed graduate training in immunology and malaria with Dr. Paul-Henri Lambert at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, and post-doctoral training in transplantation biology with E. Donnell Thomas and John Hansen at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA. He has published more than 500 manuscripts and is the recipient of numerous honors and prizes.