CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY AND IMMUNOTHERAPY
In addition to creating a thriving interdisciplinary environment for biomedical discovery, CIII will support the development of startups while attracting top immunology and immunotherapy scientists and helping to build the future workforce in these fields through training. The goal is to foster “the immunology equivalent of Silicon Valley in Los Angeles,” according to Dr. John Mazziotta, vice chancellor for health sciences and CEO of UCLA Health. “Immunology plays a central role in the GI tract in both health and disease,” Dr. Esrailian says. “It is an honor for me to help create an opportunity for our division’s faculty, fellows, and students to be a part of this historic project for many years to come. It will be transformational for the field of digestive diseases as well as other disease areas by leveraging UCLA’s unique strengths and establishing an ecosystem for entrepreneurship that will ensure discoveries are translated to therapies and technology that benefit patients.” “A deeper understanding of the science of immunology can transform biomedical sciences,” says Dr. Owen N. Witte, UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics and President’s Chair in Developmental Immunology. “I can’t think of a single disorder that wouldn’t be better treated if we had a greater insight into the immune system.” Dr. Witte points out that among human organ systems, only the nervous system, vascular system, and immune system are distributed throughout the body. “Each of those systems influences all of the other systems in the body, and when
they don’t work correctly and synergistically, you get human disease,” Dr. Witte says. “There really isn’t a group of diseases that doesn’t have some immune interaction.” A greater understanding of immunology has fueled the field of immunotherapy, which involves engineering the immune system to fight diseases. “Over the last 20 years, advances in immunotherapy for cancer alone have been breathtaking — the greatest new classes of drugs, like checkpoint inhibitors and cellular therapies, have been incredibly exciting,” says Dr. Witte, whose own group has played a pivotal role in cellular therapies with its contributions to the understanding of human leukemias, immune disorders, and epithelial cancers. “We are now seeing expansion of those types of therapies for lots of other diseases — including autoimmune diseases, which will be the next frontier. This is a revolution in medical treatment, and UCLA is going to be able to play an enormous role in it, in synergy with this new institute.” Dr. Belldegrun, one of CIII’s founding donors and the founding director of the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology, has devoted much of his career to developing immunotherapy treatments for cancer. In 2009, based on research that started at UCLA, he founded Santa Monica-based Kite Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company that has led the way in developing cancer cell therapies and has treated more patients with CAR T-cell therapy than any company. Since then, Dr. Belldegrun has launched several other companies that have generated significant progress in the field of immunotherapy. Genetic engineering paved the way for immunotherapy treatments, notes Dr. Belldegrun, who began his career at
L-R: Dr. Owen N. Witte, Dr. Michael V. Drake, Governor Gavin Newsom
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uclahealth.org/departments/medicine/gastro
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