WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE

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Human Cancer Immunology

The identification of melanocyte-lineage restricted antigens (such as gp100 and MART1/Melan-A) that are over-expressed in metastatic melanoma serves as the starting point for vaccine strategies to elicit tumor specific effector T cells. Recent data from our laboratory shows that melanoma specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) can be isolated from patients that are immunized with gp100 melanoma antigen peptide-pulsed dendritic cells (DC). In a phase I clinical trial, all 12 patients had detectable circulating melanoma-peptide specific CTL after DC vaccination. Our interest is to develop additional clinical trials using DC to hyper-immunize patients with advanced melanoma. Immunological monitoring of patients is essential toward understanding the kinetics and magnitude of melanoma antigen specific CTL after immunization. Full characterization of antigen-specific CTL from immunized patients is viewed as a high priority. Tumor profiling will be done longitudinally to assess mechanisms of resistance and immune evasion. The long term goal is to create effective immunotherapies for patients with advanced melanoma.

Glioma Biomarkers

The standard treatment for human glioblastoma multiforme (grade IV astrocytoma) is surgical resection followed by radiation with concurrent temozolomide followed by adjuvant temozolomide. Despite recent advances with addition of chemotherapy, most patients develop disease progression by 12 months. In a collaborative effort with members of the Neuro-Oncology faculty, my interest is to develop new clinical trials utilizing novel biomarkers to stratify patients into treatment groups evaluating investigational therapies. The long term goal is to employ a biomarker based strategy to select optimal first line treatment for patients with glioblastoma multiforme.

Hierarchical clustering of cDNA gene expression data in patients with newly diagnosed stage I-III breast cancer Cases with pathological complete response are underlined.

From: Stec J, Wang J, Coombes K, Ayers M, Hoersch S, Gold DL, Ross JS, Hess KR, Tirrell S, Linette G, Hortobagyi GN, Fraser Symmans W, Pusztai L
Comparison of the predictive accuracy of DNA array-based multigene classifiers across cDNA arrays and Affymetrix GeneChips.
J Mol Diagn 2005 Aug;7(3):357-67

Education

1976-1980	BS (Biology), St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA
1984-1990	MD/PhD (Microbiology), Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC

Post-graduate Training

1990-1992	Intern and Resident, Medicine, Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, MO
1992-1995	Research Fellow, Molecular Oncology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
1995-1998	Clinical Fellow, Hematology-Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
2005	Visiting Scientist, Neuro-Oncology Branch, NIH/NCI/NINDS, Bethesda, MD

Academic Appointments

1980-1984	Research Specialist in Immunology, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
1995-1998	Clinical and Research Fellow, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
1998-2001	Instructor, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
2001-present	Assistant Professor of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO

Industry Experience

2002-2004

Director, Molecular Oncology, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Cambridge, MA

Hospital Service

2001-present	Medical Director, Melanoma Service, Siteman Cancer Center
2005-present	Medical Director, Neuro-Oncology Service, Siteman Cancer Center
2006-2008	Medical Director, GMP Facility, Siteman Cancer Center

Board Certification

1997	Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine
1999	Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine (Medical Oncology)

Awards & Honors

1988	Special Commendation for Pre-doctoral Presentation, IV International Conference on AIDS, Stockholm, Sweden
1992	Post-Graduate Medical Scientist, Washington University School of Medicine
1997	PhRMA Fellow in Clinical Pharmacology
2000	NIH/NCI Research Career Development Award

Professional Memberships

1996	American Society of Hematology
1997	American Society of Clinical Oncology
1998	American Society of Immunologists
1998	American Society for Cancer Research
2000	International Society for Cellular Therapy
2007	Society for Neuro-Oncology

Major Committee Assignments

1996-2001	MGH Melanoma Disease Center
1998-1999	DFCI/PCC Gynecologic Oncology Subcommittee on Immunotherapy
1999-2001	Harvard Cancer Center, Committee on Cancer Immunology
2001-present	Siteman Cancer Center, Melanoma Program
2005-present	Siteman Cancer Center, Neuro-Oncology Program
2006-present	NCCN Central Nervous System Cancers Panel, member
2006-present	Washington University, Human Studies Committee, member

• Updated: June 3, 2009
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