Our Science – Weiss Website

Jonathan M. Weiss, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Experimental Immunology Experimental Therapeutics Section Staff Scientist Building 560; Room 31-18 1050 Boyles Street Frederick, MD 21702 Phone:   (301) 846-5394 Fax:   (301) 846-1673 E-Mail:   WeissJ@ncifcrf.gov

Biography

Jonathan Weiss received his Ph.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1998, where he studied the role of chemokines and cellular adhesion molecules in mediating leukocyte transmigration across the human blood-brain barrier with Dr. Joan Berman. He was then a postdoc with Dr. Leslie Parise at UNC Chapel Hill, where he studied the molecular reguation of platelet aggregation. He continued his postdoctoral training at the University of Virginia with Dr. Alan Horwitz, where he utilized a high throughput screening strategy to screen for novel molecular regulators of cell adhesion and migration. After that, he spent three years as a Research Scientist at MaxCyte, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the electroporation of DNA and siRNA into primary hematopoietic cells. His research there demonstrated the enhanced anti-tumor response through ex vivo loading of dendritic cells with whole tumor lysate. In 2005, he joined NCI Frederick where his current research focuses on the immunotherapy of renal cell carcinoma by combination cytokine therapy.

Research

Combination-based immunotherapies may more effectively activate cells of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Using an orthotopic mouse model of renal cell carcinoma (RENCA), I am investigating the mechanisms whereby combinations of cytokines and other immune-modulating drugs, such as anti-CD40, result in the eradication of tumors.

Principally, I am interested in understanding the mechanisms of leukocyte recruitment into the tumor microenvironment and the responses by these tumor-infiltrating leukocytes as they relate to tumor progression and/or metastases.

This page was last updated on 8/4/2008.