Dragonfly Therapeutics Adds Natural Killer Cell-Based Cancer Immunotherapy Expert to Its Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Adelheid Cerwenka, professor at Heidelberg University and head of the Innate Immunity group in the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, joins the company's advisory board.
WALTHAM, Mass., May 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc. ("Dragonfly"), today announced the addition of Dr. Adelheid Cerwenka, an international leader in innate immune responses against tumors, to its Scientific Advisory Board.
"We are thrilled to have Dr. Cerwenka join Dragonfly's Scientific Advisory Board," said Dr. Tyler Jacks, Dragonfly co-founder and head of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. "Adelheid's expertise in how to increase the persistence of NK cells in tumors and how to amplify the recognition of cancer cells by NK cells will be a great help in our development of NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies that can both enhance the effectiveness of T cell performance and attack cancer directly."
Adelheid Cerwenka, Ph.D., is a professor at Heidelberg University and Head of the Innate Immunity Group in the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Her research areas include innate immune responses against cancer and viruses. Dr. Cerwenka received a doctorate from the University of Vienna, Austria. Her postdoctoral research was at the Trudeau Institute New York, and UCSF. She then headed a laboratory at Novartis Research Institute in Vienna before joining the faculty at the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Cerwenka is author of more than 80 publications and member of the German Society for Immunology coordinating the "NK cells" focus group and is the president elect of the Society for Natural Immunity.
"Like T cells, Natural Killer (NK) cells are a part of the body's natural immune system, which can recognize and destroy cancer cells in a broad set of indications," said Dr. Cerwenka. "I have studied NK cells for decades, and am delighted to bring my expertise to Dragonfly in order to dramatically expand the range of immunotherapies available to patients."
About Dragonfly
Dragonfly Therapeutics harnesses its novel TriNKETTM technology to develop drugs that leverage the power of the innate immune system to provide breakthrough cancer treatments for patients.
For more information on Dragonfly, visit www.dragonflytx.com or follow Dragonfly on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/dragonflytx), Twitter @DragonflyTX) , or Linkedin.
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SOURCE Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc.
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