Carl June

Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy at Penn; director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at UPenn. Led the team behind tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) — the first FDA-approved gene therapy in the U.S. (2017). >500 papers, h-index 175. Lifetime Achievement lecture at Session V.

Current Programs

Armored CARs (CD19 + IL-18)

• CAR that secretes IL-18 into the microenvironment
• Durable complete metabolic response at 1/100 of FDA-approved dose

Dual-Target CAR for Glioblastoma

• OR-gated EGFR-vIII + IL-13Rα2; intra-CSF via Ommaya
• 13/18 patients with MRI responses; best patient 34 months out, no recurrence

Multiplex CRISPR Screens (Cas12a)

• ~7,000 paired-KO combinations; best dual KO: Regnase-1 + EGR2
• Pool-KO CAR cells cure most NSG mice; CAR alone cannot

Immune Reset for Autoimmunity

• CD19 CAR producing drug-free remissions in lupus, scleroderma
• ~300 trials active; longest remission >3 years
• Collaboration with Georg Schett and Fabian Müller (Erlangen)

Career Arc

• Decade engineering cells for HIV before pivoting to cancer — HIV work directly seeded oncology platform
• Emily Whitehead’s clinician (first child cured by CAR-T)
• Nonlinear career: nothing was wasted

“What we don’t know yet is duration.”