Juno Appoints Jeffrey Bluestone as Scientific Advisor

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Dec 01, 2014, 08:00 ET

SEATTLE, Dec. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Juno Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, as scientific advisor. He will advise the company on T cell therapies, including potential applications in autoimmune disease and organ transplantation.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Bluestone, one of the world's outstanding T cell biologists, who has made major contributions in basic immunology and in the translation of those discoveries to clinical trials," said Juno CEO Hans Bishop.

Bluestone's scientific work includes building a broad understanding of human immune responses at the molecular level, with significant contributions to stem cell research and immunology. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed publications in journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, the Journal of Immunology, and Diabetes.

"I am excited to be working with Juno's outstanding scientific founders and team to translate discoveries in immune tolerance into medical applications," said Bluestone.

Bluestone is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor and Director of the Hormone Research Institute at the University of California San Francisco, where he guides the institute's autoimmunity research and clinical initiatives in immune tolerance and T cell therapies. He has held appointments at the University of Chicago and the National Cancer Institute, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. After earning his BS in biology and MS in microbiology from Rutgers University, Bluestone earned a PhD in immunology from the Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science.

About Juno

Juno Therapeutics, Inc. is building a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on revolutionizing medicine by re-engaging the body's immune system to treat cancer. Founded on the vision that the use of human cells as therapeutic entities will drive one of the next important phases in medicine, Juno is developing cell-based cancer immunotherapies based on chimeric antigen receptor and high-affinity T cell receptor technologies to genetically engineer T cells to recognize and kill cancer. Juno is developing multiple cell-based product candidates to treat a variety of B-cell malignancies as well as solid tumors. Several product candidates have shown compelling evidence of tumor shrinkage in the clinical trials in refractory leukemia and lymphoma conducted to date. The company's long-term aim is to improve and leverage its cell-based platform to develop new product candidates that address a broader range of cancers and human diseases. Juno brings together innovative technologies from three of the world's leading research institutions – the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Seattle Children's Research Institute.

www.JunoTherapeutics.com

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SOURCE Juno Therapeutics