Christopher Herrem, PhD
|
Program:
Immunology
Graduated:
8/2004
Mentor:
Dr. Walter Storkus
Thesis:
Characterization and Immune Targeting of a Novel Tumor Antigen, EPHA2
Previous Institutions Attended:
University of Wisconsin at Madison, BS in Genetics
|
I am now working as a Research Scientist for a company called Protalex Inc. Our company is currently developing a drug for the treatment of auto-immune diseases. We are currently running a Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers, with Phase 2 starting sometime later this year. I am responsible for directing the studies to determine the mechanism of action of our lead compound, PRTX-100. I have also been involved in designing clinical immunology sections of Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, as well as being involved in the authorship of a provisional patent.
Publications while a graduate student at Pitt:
Herrem CJ, Tatsumi T, Olson KS, Shirai K, Finke JH, Bukowski RM, Zhou M, Richmond AL, Derweesh I, Kinch MS, Storkus WJ. Expression of EphA2 is prognostic of disease-free interval and overall survival in surgically treated patients with renal cell carcinoma. Clin Cancer Res. 2005 Jan 1;11(1):226-31.
Tatsumi T, Herrem CJ, Olson WC, Finke JH, Bukowski RM, Kinch MS, Ranieri E, Storkus WJ. Disease stage variation in CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell reactivity to the receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2 in patients with renal cell carcinoma. Cancer Res. 2003 Aug 1;63(15):4481-9.
EphA2 expression predicts outcome in patients with renal cell carcinoma CONTEXT: Herrem CJ et al. (2005) . Clin Cancer Res 11: 226–231 The receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2 is over expressed in some epithelial carcinomas, and in metastatic lesions in Nature Clinical Practice Urology 2, 121-122 (01 Mar 2005)
In what ways did your training at Pitt prepare you for your current position?
Perhaps the most important thing I learned from my mentor, Dr. Walter Storkus, was how to control an experiment correctly. My current position involves determining the mechanism of action of our lead compound for the treatment of auto-immune diseases. During the course of these experiments, I find myself constantly designing experiments and determining the control groups in the way Dr. Storkus had taught me. In addition to this, how to critically read journal articles to determine how strong the research is might be the most important thing my coursework taught me. The ability to discern whether a group of investigators has properly carried out a set of experiments is important for every research scientist, no matter what field or industry you are in. What did you find to be personally rewarding in the work you did while here at Pitt or in the work in which you are currently involved?
The work I did at Pitt and the work I'm currently doing at Protalex are related in the fact that I'm involved in science that will hopefully directly affect people's lives. From what I understand, some of the work I did at Pitt in using agonist antibodies to induce tumor antigen degradation helped support the use of one of these antibodies at the Cleveland Clinic for the treatment of cancer. The various work I'm doing now: trying to determine how our compound can be used to treat numerous auto-immune diseases, assisting in the writing of several IND applications to the FDA, co-authorship of patent applications, will hopefully result in treating individuals afflicted with auto-immune disease. It's humbling sometimes, because the work I'm doing is much bigger than me. Yet at the same time, its very satisfying knowing I'm lucky enough to be in this position.
Back to Alumni Spotlight
|