Honorary Lecture by Professor dr. Carl H. June on CAR T-cells for leukemia: a long journey

Honorary Lecture by Professor dr. Carl H. June on CAR T-cells for leukemia: a long journey

Dear Colleagues, 

Peter Carmeliet and myself have the great pleasure and honor to invite you to the Honorary Lecture by Professor dr. Carl H. June on CAR T-cells for leukemia: a long journey, which will take place on Thursday, February 16th, 2017 at 5:30 PM in Auditorium O&N4, Campus Gasthuisberg, Leuven. You are kindly invited to the reception thereafter. Please register for the lecture via benedicte.1.dubois@uzleuven.be.  

It is a unique opportunity to welcome Professor dr. June, who will receive the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Leuven, on February 15th, 2017. Dr. June is highly regarded as a pioneer of adoptive T-cell therapy for cancer and HIV.

Building on his basic research on costimulatory receptors in T cell activation, T-cell expansion and T-cell anergy, dr. June has developed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for acute and chronic leukemia. Here, the patient’s own T-cells are genetically engineered, ex vivo, with an artificial receptor consisting of two domains: an antibody derived domain that directs T-cells to the malignant cells, and an intracellular domain that activates the T cells following the encounter with the cancer cell. When reinfused into the patient, CAR T-cells induce durable responses in patients with relapsed and refractory leukemia. Applying CAR T-cell treatment to solid tumors is also being studied. More than 100 CAR T-cell trials are now open globally.

For his work, dr. June has received several prestigious awards, including the Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science, the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, the Lloyd Old Award from the American Association for Cancer Research the Novartis Award for Clinical Immunology, and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (together with dr. Allison).

Dr. June is Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy and Program Director of Translational Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia.

Kind regards,

Peter Vandenberghe MD PhD
Hematology
University Hospitals Leuven
Laboratory of Genetics of Malignant Disorders
Department of Human Genetics
Campus Gasthuisberg, O&N4
Herestraat 49
3000 Leuven

 

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