Lieping Chen, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Lieping Chen is Professor of Dermatology and Oncology and Director of Dermatology Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from Fujian Medical College, China, an oncology fellowship from Beijing Union Medical College, China and a Ph.D. from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the University of Washington-Seattle, Dr. Chen joined the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. in Seattle as an research scientist until 1997, and became Professor in the Department of Immunology, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Chen resumed current positions at Johns Hopkins from 2004. Dr. ChenŐs laboratory was the first to use costimulation to enhance tumor immunity in 1992 and has identified and characterized a series of molecules in the B7 and the TNF receptor/ligand superfamilies. His laboratory is interested in investigating molecular, biochemical, structural aspects of cell surface co-signal molecules and their functions in the control of innate and adaptive immunity. He is also interested in translating laboratory findings for immunotherapy of cancer, autoimmune diseases, viral infection as well as the induction of transplantation tolerance. His laboratory has made direct contributions to the development of cancer therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against many of these family targets including CD137/4-1BB and B7-H1. Dr. Chen has published more than 200 scientific papers, review articles and book chapters, and edited two books. He has delivered more than 150 seminars, lecturer and speeches and served in many committees and advisory boards for US federal government and private organizations.

Drew M. Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Pardoll is Seraph Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. He is Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Program in the Sydney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Pardoll completed his M.D., Ph.D., Medical Residency and Oncology Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Pardoll has published over 200 papers as well as over 20 book chapters on the subject of T cell immunology and cancer vaccines.

He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Cell, and has served as a member of scientific advisory boards for the Cancer Research Institute, the University of Pennsylvania Human Gene Therapy Gene Institute, Biologic Resources Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Harvard-Dana Farber Cancer Center, Cerus Corporation, Global Medical Products Corporation, Genencor Corporation, CellGenesys Corporation, Mojave Therapeutics, the American Association of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research. Dr. Pardoll has made a number of basic advances in Cellular Immunology, including the discovery of gamma - delta T cells, NKT cells and interferon-producing killer dendritic cells. Over the past two decades, Dr. Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of dendritic cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system. He is an inventor of a number of immunotherapies, including GVAX cancer vaccines and Listeria monocytogenes based cancer vaccines.

Elizabeth M. Jaffee, M.D.

Dr. Jaffee is Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Program and the Brocolli Professor in Oncology. Dr. Jaffee completed her M.D. at New York Medical College and is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.

The overall goal of Dr. Jaffee's research is to develop vaccine strategies that can induce specific antitumor immunity potent enough to cure cancer. Dr. Jaffee's laboratory focuses predominantly on two diseases: breast cancer and pancreatic cancer. One major project of the Jaffee laboratory is the evaluation of new antigen-specific vaccine approaches for the treatment and prevention of cancer in the HER-2/neu transgenic mouse model of breast cancer. These mice overexpress the proto-oncogene under the MMTV promoter in normal mammary tissue and subsequently develop focal mammary tumors and have several advantages over previous models used to develop vaccine approaches.

A second major project receiving focus in Dr. Jaffee's laboratory is the translation of novel vaccines into therapies for patients with pancreatic and breast cancer. Dr. Jaffee has completed a phase I study testing an allogeneic GM-CSF-secreting tumor vaccine in patients with pancreatic cancer who were eligible for complete surgical resection of their tumors. Dr. Jaffee and her team are currently testing a similar vaccine approach in patients with advanced breast cancer.

A third major project that is ongoing in Dr. Jaffee's laboratory is the identification of human tumor antigens recognized by T cells that have been isolated from vaccinated individuals. Dr. Jaffee has already completed testing two GM-CSF-secreting whole cell vaccine approaches in patients with renal cell carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. Dr. Jaffee has banked pairs of autologous lymphocytes and tumor cells from vaccinated patients that are being used to identify the tumor antigens that are the target of activated T cells. Dr. Jaffee's laboratory has developed a functional genomic approach to isolate the genes encoding for these antigens.

Andrea Cox, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Andrea Cox earned her Ph.D. at The University of Virginia, where she worked on characterization of peptide antigens, including tumor antigen identification. She subsequently pursued an M.D. at Johns Hopkins University and is currently a board certified infectious disease specialist and Assistant Professor on the faculty at Johns Hopkins with a joint appointment in the Departments of Medicine and Oncology. Her laboratory currently investigates human immune responses to chronic viral infections, particularly hepatitis C virus. She is principally interested in mechanisms through which infections evade cellular immune responses, vaccine development, and immunotherapy of chronic viral infections. The overall goal of her program is to understand immune system failure to clear chronic viral infections in order to overcome the mechanisms of immune evasion that limit the efficacy of viral vaccines and therapy.

Charles G. Drake, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Drake is Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology, Immunology, and Urology at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. Dr. Drake earned his M.D. degree from the University of Colorado Health Science Center and his Ph.D. from National Jewish Center for Immunology. He is Board Certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.

Dr. Drake's laboratory has undertaken an interactive approach in which discoveries in the laboratory guide clinical trial development, and the results of these trials will feed back to the laboratory to further refine and expand the role of immunotherapy approaches for patients with prostate cancer.

To date, clinical trials of immunotherapy in patients with solid tumors have been somewhat disappointing, with response rates less than would be predicted by standard transplantable models. It seems increasingly unlikely that immunotherapy alone will prove sufficient to control advanced cancer. Thus, Dr. Drake and his team are interested in the development of combination strategies involving radiation, chemotherapy, and androgen manipulation as well as immune checkpoint blockade is critical to achieve clinical success. Testing a variety of combination approaches is impractical in the clinic but is achievable using a targeted model approach involving transgenic animals that spontaneously develop prostate cancer. The full genetic characterization of the specific T cells rendered unresponsive by cancer forms the scientific basis for this approach, and has the potential to define new molecular targets and pathways to augment vaccine efficacy. Finally, characterization of patients' immune response to prostate cancer in the presence or absence of vaccination will determine new cellular targets for vaccination.

Jonathan D. Powell, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Powell is Assistant Professor of Oncology and Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences. Dr. Powell completed his M.D., Ph.D. at Emory University and is board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology.

Dr. Powell and his team are endeavoring to define the biochemical and molecular events that determine T cell activation versus tolerance. By employing high dimensional transcriptional and proteomic analysis the Powell lab is identifying novel molecules and pathways responsible for regulating T cell responses. This approach has identified the Early Growth Response (Egr) genes as key regulators of T cell function.

Recently, the lab has determined that the A2a adenosine receptor can play an important role in terms of regulating T cell activation and tolerance induction in-vivo. To this end, not only is the lab dissecting the mechanism of A2a signaling on T cell tolerance but also is employing either A2a specific agonists and antagonists to either inhibit or enhance immune function in vivo.

Another focus for the lab has been the role of mTOR in regulating the decision between T cell activation and tolerance. By examining the pathways distal to IL-2 receptor signaling, the lab has identified mTOR as playing a potentially central role in mediating this decision. As a result of these studies, molecules both upstream and downstream of mTOR are being identified as novel regulators of T cell activation.