Dr. Carl H. June, Cancer Immunotherapy Pioneer, Joins CytoSorbents Scientific Advisory Board

On Mar 22, 2017

CytoSorbents Corporation, a Monmouth Junction-based critical care immunotherapy leader commercializing its flagship CytoSorb® blood filter to treat deadly inflammation in critically-ill and cardiac surgery patients around the world, announced that CAR T-cell cancer immunotherapy pioneer, Dr. Carl H. June, M.D., will join its scientific advisory board to help guide applications of the company’s technology in the treatment of cancer.

Dr. Carl June, Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, stated, “Life-threatening inflammation caused by high grade cytokine release syndrome (CRS) has been observed in a wide range of cancer immunotherapies. The successful use of CytoSorb to help treat patients with the similar hyper-inflammatory and potentially deadly condition called secondary HLH, or hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, suggests that CytoSorb may help in managing severe CRS as well. But even beyond cytokine release syndrome, there is fascinating potential of this unique immunomodulation therapy in cancer treatment and immuno-oncology, making it an exciting time for me to become involved.”

Dr. Phillip Chan, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of CytoSorbents stated, “We are very fortunate to welcome Dr. June, one of the true visionaries in oncology research, to our advisory board. His scientific leadership in CAR T-cell immunotherapies, that activate a patient’s own immune system to fight certain malignancies, has given cancer patients and their families around the world new hope.  We look forward to his guidance as we continue expansion of our technology in cancer treatment.”

Dr. Carl June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania. He maintains a research laboratory that studies various mechanisms of lymphocyte activation that relate to immune tolerance and adoptive immunotherapy for cancer and chronic infection. In 2011, his research team published findings detailing a new therapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia were treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. The treatment has also now been used with promising results to treat children with refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He has published more than 350 manuscripts and is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine in 2012 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, the William B. Coley award, the Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology, the Philadelphia Award in 2012, the Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science in 2014 (shared w S. Grupp, B. Levine, D. Porter), the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (shared w J. Allison), the Novartis Prize in Immunology (shared w Z. Eshaar and S. Rosenberg), the Karl Landsteiner Memorial award, the Debrecen Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Dr. June is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 1979. He had graduate training in Immunology and malaria with Dr. Paul-Henri Lambert at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland from 1978-79, and post-doctoral training in transplantation biology with E. Donnell Thomas and John Hansen at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle from 1983 – 1986. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.

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