Director of Translational Research, Immune Effector Cell Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dr. Smith is a physician-scientist serving as Director of Translational Research for Immune Effector Cell Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he is also Principal Investigator of a synthetic biology and cellular engineering pre-clinical discovery laboratory group. He completed MD/PhD training and residency in internal medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His early work identified MM specific cell surface targets with limited predicted “on target-off tumor” potential, including the novel target for the immunotherapy of myeloma, GPRC5D. He engineered, evaluated, and optimized fully human CAR vectors targeting both GPRC5D and BCMA. There are currently 6 clinical trials investigating CAR constructs stemming from this work including a multi-institutional phase II study targeting BCMA and a first-in-class study targeting GPRC5D. Ongoing work in his lab includes efforts to understand sub-optimal responses of cellular therapies and, through using the latest genetic engineering and cell manufacturing tools, engineering around these pitfalls.