Carl H. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 1979. He had graduate training in Immunology and malaria with Dr. Paul-Henri Lambert at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland from 1978-79, and post-doctoral training in transplantation biology with E. Donnell Thomas and John Hansen at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle from 1983 - 1986. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.  He maintains a research laboratory that studies various mechanisms of lymphocyte activation that relate to immune tolerance and adoptive immunotherapy for cancer and chronic infection. In 2011, his research team published findings detailing a new therapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia were treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. The June laboratory has been highly productive with >500 publications, and more than >130,000 citations.

The impact of this work has become widely recognized as a major turning point that is delivering on the long-held promise of cancer gene therapy. The CAR T cells invented in the June laboratory were awarded “Breakthrough Therapy” status by the FDA for acute leukemia in children and adults in 2014 and for adults with lymphoma in 2018. The CAR T cells invented in the June laboratory were approved by the FDA for acute leukemia in 2017 and afterwards, for diffuse large B cell lymphoma. These accomplishments have been recognized by the White House on several occasions.

June is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He has been awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (shared w J. Allison), the Novartis Prize in Immunology (shared w Z. Eshhar and S. Rosenberg), the Karl Landsteiner Memorial award, the Karnofsky Prize from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Albany Medical Prize, a lifetime achievement award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, The Lorraine Cross Sanford Health Award for life-changing breakthroughs and innovations in medical science and The Dan David Prize.