Carl H. June

Carl H. June (born 1953) is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research on T cell therapies for the treatment of several forms of cancers. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Education and career June graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1975 and earned his medical degree in from the Baylor College of Medicine in 1979. He spent his fourth year of medical school at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, studying immunology and malaria with Dr. Paul Henri-Lambert, and completed clinical training in internal medicine and medical oncology from 1979 to 1983 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. June conducted postdoctoral research in transplantation biology with E. Donnall Thomas and John Hansen at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle from 1983 to 1986. After completing his training, he returned to Bethesda, where he founded the Immune Cell Biology Program at the Naval Medical Research Center and was head of the department of immunology from 1990 to 1995. He was also a professor of medicine and of cell and molecular biology at the Uniformed Services University for the Health Sciences. In 1999 June joined the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of molecular and cellular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania's school of medicine and investigator at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, where he remains today. He is board-certified in internal medicine and oncology.

Research June has been a pioneer in the field of immunotherapy, most widely known for the development of T-cell therapy for cancer. In the 1980s, his lab supported research for the CD28 molecule as the major control switch for T cells. A few years later, his lab tested the ability to culture genetically modified CAR-Ts in humans, discovering the cells could engraft and persist in patients with HIV/AIDS for years. 2017 – Karnofsky Prize, ASCO 2017 – Distinguished Scientist Award, Association of American Cancer Institutes 2018 – Time 100: The Most Influential People of 2018 2018 – Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research. 2018 – Passano Prize 2019 – ACTS Distinguished Investigator: Translation from Proof-of-Concept to Applicability for Widespread Clinical Practice Award 2019 – Harrington Prize, American Society for Clinical Investigation 2019 – The Edward Netter Leadership Award, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy 2020 – Lorraine Cross Award 2020 – Elected member American Philosophical Society 2020 – Genome Valley Excellence Award, BioAsia 2020 – Elected member National Academy of Sciences 2021 – Dan David Prize 2021 – Outstanding Achievement Award, American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy 2022 – Keio Medical Science Prize 2022 – Maria I. New International Prize for Biomedical Research 2023 – Phacilitate Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 – Clarivate Citation Laureates 2024 – Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences 2024 – Abarca Prize, for CAR-T cell therapy to fight blood cancer 2024 – VinFuture Prize, alongside Zelig Eshhar, and Michel Sadelain for the development and advancement of CAR T cell therapy. 2024 – Warren Alpert Foundation Prize 2025 – Balzan Prize 2025 – Broermann Medical Innovation Award 2025 – BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category "Biology and Biomedizin" jointly with Michel Sadelain. 2026 – Tang Prize in the category "Biopharmaceutical Science".