2017 Clinical Research Forum Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Awards Reengineering Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells for Targeted Therapy of Autoimmunity

Penn researchers Aimee S. Payne, MD, PhD, and Michael C. Milone, MD, PhD, are the recipients of 2017 National Clinical Research Achievement Awards for research that paired precision medicine with immunology to treat pemphigus vulgaris (PV). A potentially fatal disease, PV causes widespread blistering by provoking activated immune cells to attack a protein that binds the layers of the skin. In their research, Drs. Payne and Milone used targeted chimeric autoantibody receptor (CAR) T cells to target the immune cells that cause PV, eliminating their effect and preserving skin integrity. Drs. Payne and Milone were assisted in their research by Christoph Ellebrecht, MD.