When we first started conceptualizing a T cell program at NewLimit, one of our dream researchers to work with was John Wherry. John is a developmental biologist who has been on an epic multi-decade immunology journey.
At NewLimit we are looking at retro-walking the same developmental pathways John has deeply characterized throughout his career. We’re excited to announce that E. John Wherry is joining our Scientific Advisory Board, alongside our existing Scientific Advisors Mark Davis and Alex Marson.
John brings a wealth of experience exploring cell fate decisions in the immune system with emerging genomics methods to our SAB. We couldn’t be more excited to work with John to develop epigenetic reprogramming medicines.
About E. John Wherry
Dr. E. John Wherry is the Barbara Schiffrin President’s Distinguished Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. John also serves as the Chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics and the Director of the Institute for Immunology at the Perelman School of Medicine.
John’s work has pioneered the field of T cell exhaustion and revealed the molecular mechanisms of diverse T cell identity programs. Among other contributions, his group has defined the transcriptional program of T cell exhaustion, revealed the functional characteristics of exhausted T cells, and discovered the role of inhibitory receptors such as PD-1 in the exhaustion program. The Wherry lab has demonstrated that exhaustion programs play an important role in limiting the effectiveness of adaptive immune responses to both chronic infection and cancer and explored checkpoint blockade mechanisms to re-invigorate exhausted cells. To enable these discoveries, the Wherry lab has employed emerging epigenetic profiling technologies to define T cell identity programs, identify the molecular drivers of these transcriptional programs, and delineate distinct T cell fates.
Dr. Wherry holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from the Thomas Jefferson University and a B.S. from the Pennsylvania State University.