From Bench to Fireside

What if our immune cells could be reprogrammed to sense, decide and act—outsmarting even the most elusive tumors? In this episode of From Bench to Fireside Kole Roybal, PhD, Director of the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy Center at UCSF, joins PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, to break down how engineered immune cells are moving from the lab to the clinic—and changing how...

In this episode of From Bench to Fireside, host John Connolly, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), interviews Roberta Zappasodi, PhD, Assistant Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology and member of the PICI Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Zappasodi has been instrumental in uncovering immunotherapy resistance -- from her early career pre...

In this episode of From Bench to Fireside , host John Connolly, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), interviews Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, Director of the PICI Center at UCLA, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Riba...

In this episode of From Bench to Fireside , host John Connolly, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), interviews Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, MHCM, FASCO - Director of the Breast Immuno-Oncology Program and Co-Director of the PICI Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Robert and Karen Hale Distinguished Chair in Surgical Oncology and the Directo...

In this episode of From Bench to Fireside, host John Connolly, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), interviews Carl June, MD, Director of the PICI Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Known as "the Father of CAR T-cell therapy," Dr. June's groundbreaking work led to the first FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapy in 2017, revolutionizing precision m...

2022 Parker Bridge Fellow at UCLA, Katie Campbell, PhD, is a rising star in cancer informatics. In this episode, Katie talks with PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, about her journey into personalized medicine and the pivotal role of advanced spatial profiling techniques in unraveling the intricacies of the tumor microenvironment. She shares insights on integrating genomics with imm...

In this episode, Robbie Majzner, MD, a PICI Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, sits down with PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, to discuss efforts to engineer next-generation CAR T cells using synthetic biology to enhance the therapeutic potential for fatal pediatric cancers. Formerly a researcher at Stanford University, where he was mentored by  Crystal Mackall, MD,...

In this episode, PICI Member Researcher Evanna Mills, PhD, a distinguished professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, joins PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, to discuss her groundbreaking research in immuno-metabolism. Evanna explores how cellular metabolism and metabolites can influence critical immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, potentially adv...

In this episode, Justin Eyquem, PhD, Parker Senior Fellow and PICI Member Researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, talks about his visionary work pioneering CAR-T cell therapies and synthetic biology with PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD. Listen as Justin provides an inside look at the CAR-T revolution, from next-generation therapies to cutting-edge advancements l...

In this episode, Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, a PICI Network Investigator and the Director of Immunotherapy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, sits down with PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, for an in-depth conversation about her journey from rheumatology to cancer immunology.  Listen to Dr. Bhardwaj, who also holds the position of Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research at...

In this episode, physician-scientist Christopher A. Klebanoff, MD, a PICI Network Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, provides an inside look at his groundbreaking research on optimizing T-cell activation for cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Klebanoff discusses his work on targeting mutated driver oncogenes, expanding cell therapies beyond blood cancers, and using CD4+ T cells to impr...

In this episode, pioneering researcher Crystal Mackall, MD, Center Director for the PICI Center at Stanford Medicine, talks through what led to her contributions to cancer immunotherapy, including her point of view on tackling challenging problems like pediatric cancers. Dr. Mackall has dedicated her career to harnessing the immune system to treat cancer and was among a notable handful that helped...

This episode of “From Bench to Fireside” is a special one for PICI that marks a network expansion with Weill Cornell Medicine joining as our newest PICI Center. The partnership will build upon PICI’s work to accelerate research efforts in cancer immunotherapy and represents an expansion for PICI on the East Coast. Dr. Jedd D. Wolchok, the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center...

For more than three decades, Dr. Lewis Lanier has researched natural killer (NK) cells and their innate and adaptive responses to pathogens and cancer. The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy’s Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD, kicks off the first season of From Bench to Fireside™ in conversation with Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California, San Francisco and...

Introducing From Bench to Fireside™, a new podcast from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) that takes you from behind the lab bench to the frontiers of cancer research. Hosted by PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, each episode features an interview with members of the PICI Network, pioneers in cancer immunotherapy and leaders at world-renowned cancer research institutio...