Scientific Advisor
Bio
Dr. Christine Brown is the Heritage Provider Network Professor in Immunotherapy at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research has focused on advancing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for the treatment of cancer. As Deputy Director of the T Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratory (TCTRL), Dr. Brown provides scientific oversight for the translational research programs and ongoing phase I clinical trials evaluating CAR T cell therapy at City of Hope. Dr. Brown’s research laboratory is focused on advancing CAR T cell therapy for the treatment of brain tumors. Her efforts to develop glioblastoma-targeted CAR T cells, improve T cell manufacturing, and optimize routes of T cell delivery have led to the initiation of several first-in-human clinical trials, including ongoing clinical testing of IL13Rα2- and HER2-targeted CAR T cell therapy for the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma. Dr. Brown’s ongoing research efforts also aim to develop strategies to limit tumor antigen escape and to overcome the suppressive tumor microenvironment, critical challenges limiting the effectiveness of CAR T cell therapy for treatment of solid tumors.
Dr. Brown received her doctoral degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Leukemia & Lymphoma Scholar during her post-doctoral fellowship at Pennsylvania State University. Her scientific contributions in the development and optimization of tumor-specific CAR T cells for the treatment of brain tumors are supported by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), National Institutes of Health, Ivy Foundation, Gateway for Cancer Research, Rising Tide and Norris Foundation.