Roswell Park appoints CAR T-cell pioneer as new deputy director
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Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, has been appointed deputy director and chair of the department of medicine of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Brentjens will hold the Katherine Anne Gioia endowed chair in cancer medicine and serve as professor of oncology in the departments of medicine and immunology. He also has been appointed professor of medicine at Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at State University of New York at Buffalo.
Brentjens — born in the Netherlands and raised in Buffalo — is one of a group of researchers that led the development and clinical testing of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies for patients with hematologic malignancies.
He previously served as director of cellular therapeutics and associate chair for junior faculty development in the department of medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“Renier is both an amazing physician and a research star, and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome him back to Buffalo,” Candace S. Johnson, PhD, president, CEO and M&T Bank presidential chair in leadership at Roswell Park, said in a press release. “His achievements in cellular therapy have helped drive major shifts in how we treat many cancers today and make an outstanding pairing with our own innovations in immunotherapy and cell-based therapy.”
Brentjens will oversee basic, translational and clincal research programs at Roswell Park. He also will lead the center’s team of oncologists, advanced practice clinicians and administrative staff.
“This is a time of tremendous hope and promise,” Brentjens said in the release. “Cellular therapy is in its infancy, but it’s already dramatically reshaping what we can achieve through cancer therapy. I’m incredibly excited about the work this Roswell Park team is going to do in the next few years — the time we are going to be able to give back to patients with even advanced cancers, the cures that are within our reach today.”
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