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Penn Medicine’s Carl June, MD, Named One of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People in the World
April 20, 2018
Carl June
Dr. Carl June

PHILADELPHIA – TIME named University of Pennsylvania cancer and HIV gene therapy pioneer Carl June, MD, to the 2018 TIME 100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The list, now in its fifteenth year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals, and is honoring June for his pioneering work in developing CAR T therapy, which became the nation's first FDA-approved personalized cellular therapy for cancer in August 2017. The full list appears in the April 30, 2018 issue of TIME and is online now.

TIME editors have said of the list, “The TIME 100 is a list of the world's most influential men and women, not its most powerful, though those are not mutually exclusive terms. While power is certain, influence is subtle. As much as this exercise chronicles the achievements of the past year, we also focus on figures whose influence is likely to grow, so we can look around the corner to see what is coming."

“I’ve been fortunate that my work has given me the opportunity to improve the lives of others,” June said. “It’s truly an honor for our team to be included among so many other tremendous honorees.”

June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, the director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapy in the Abramson Cancer Center, and the director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Penn. Clinical trials of CAR T therapy began at Penn in 2010, and two of the first three patients to receive the therapy, for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) remain in remission nearly eight years later.

June has published more than 350 manuscripts and has received numerous prizes and honors, including election of the Institute of Medicine in 2012, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the William b. Coley award, the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award from the AARB, the Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the Philadelphia Award, the Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence, and the Novartis Immunology Award for Cancer Cell Therapy Development. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. In 2017, he was named a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy and received the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

June is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He received graduate training in Immunology and Malaria at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and post-doctoral training in transplantation biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report’s survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation’s top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $405 million awarded in the 2017 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center — which are recognized as one of the nation’s top “Honor Roll” hospitals by U.S. News & World Report — Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital – the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, a leading provider of highly skilled and compassionate behavioral healthcare.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2017, Penn Medicine provided $500 million to benefit our community.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2018/april/carl-june-md-named-one-of-time-most-influential

Courtesy Penn Medicine
I was a fun and energetic child. Then I spent two years in a hospital getting cancer treatment, but it wasn’t working for me. That’s when my parents and I learned about an experimental treatment, called T cell, that would train my immune system to fight my cancer; it hadn’t been tried on a pediatric patient before. My parents believed that this was the right choice for me, and we transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to enter the trial.

After getting the treatment, I went into a 14-day coma and awakened on my seventh birthday. But the treatment had worked! We later learned that Dr. Carl June’s research had created this treatment. Dr. June saved my life and had a huge impact on my family. Without him, I wouldn’t be here today writing this—and my parents and I wouldn’t be helping other kids beat cancer.

Dr. June is my hero! He saved my family.

Whitehead, who is now 12, is a founder of the nonprofit Emily Whitehead Foundation, which aims to raise awareness and funding for childhood cancer treatments

http://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5238121/carl-june/

Good luck and GOD bless,

George