Prof Michael Brown
(MBBS Hons I, FRACP, FRCPA, PhD)
Head, Translational Oncology Laboratory, Centre for Cancer Biology (CCB)
Senior Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH)
Director, RAH Cancer Clinical Trials Unit
Professor Medical Oncology, The University of Adelaide
Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia
Prof Brown is qualified as a specialist physician in clinical immunology and in medical oncology, a pathologist in laboratory immunology, and has research training in gene therapy and cancer immunotherapy. He obtained four years’ research experience working in the laboratory of gene therapy pioneer, Prof Malcolm Brenner, on gene transfer studies in murine models and on the development of related clinical protocols.
He has >20 years’ clinical oncology experience sub-specialising in tumour subtypes of lung cancer and melanoma and >25 years’ experience in clinical protocol development including in early phase immunotherapy studies. He has led the RAH Cancer Clinical Trials Unit >12 years, and it has >12 FTE staff and a portfolio of >40 active trials. Brown has >140 peer-reviewed papers (46 since 2016) including in Lancet Oncol, J Clin Oncol, and Ann Oncol (>8000 career citations). He is South Australian node leader and a Board member of the Australian Genomic Cancer Medicine Program, administering rare and less common cancer diagnosis and treatment.
At CCB, Brown investigates cancer immunotherapies in a preclinical and clinical laboratory research program, which includes translating chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell technology from preclinical model systems to the ongoing CARPETS phase 1 clinical trial.
Current Projects & Areas of Interest:
LEVI’S-CATCH Clinical Trial of GD2-CAR-T cell Therapy in children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Soon to be opened at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network.
KARPOS Clinical Trial of GD2-CAR-T cell Therapy in adults with recurrent glioblastoma. In preparation for opening at Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Dual targeting of brain tumours using (i) CAR-T cells and bi-specific T-cell engager molecules for glioblastoma antigens and (ii) genetically engineered invariant NKT cells for diffuse insintric pontine glioma.
Improving homing and persistence of CAR-T cells for glioblastoma therapy using single cell RNAseq and gene editing techniques.