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University of Pennsylvania cancer and HIV expert Carl June, MD, has been named one of two recipients of the 2015 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for his outstanding work in cancer immunotherapy. Since 1952, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize has been awarded to scientists who have made great advancements in the fields in which Paul Ehrlich worked, in particular immunology, cancer research, microbiology, and chemotherapy.
He is widely recognized as leader of the team responsible for the first successful and sustained demonstration of the use of CAR T cell therapy, an investigational approach in which a patient’s cells are removed through an apheresis process similar to dialysis and modified in Penn's cell and vaccine production facility. Scientists there reprogram the patients’ T cells through a gene modification technique using a viral vector that trains them to recognize specific types of cancer cells. The modified cells – known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells – are then infused back into the patient's body, where they multiply, hunt and attack tumor cells.