Jane Grogan

Jane L. Grogan (born 8 July 1966[citation needed]) is an Australian-born, US-based scientist specializing in immunology and cancer research. She is the executive vice president and head of research at Biogen.[1][2]

Research

Grogan's cancer research focuses on mechanisms of T cell activation, tolerance-induction and epigenetic modifiers, using integrative approaches, combining bioinformatics, biology and diagnostics. Most significantly at Genentech, Grogan and her lab identified key regulators of effector and regulatory T cells and moved targets into clinical development for autoimmune and oncology indications including anti-lymphotoxin in rheumatoid arthritis and anti-TIGIT for cancer immunotherapy [3]

Immunotherapies that harness the activity of the immune system against tumors are proving to be an effective therapeutic approach in multiple malignancies. However, tumors can also suppress these responses by activating negative regulatory pathways and checkpoints. Blocking these checkpoints on T cells has provided dramatic clinical benefit, but only a subset of patients exhibit clear and durable responses, suggesting that other mechanisms must be limiting the immune response.[4] Grogan and collaborators have identified that TIGIT, an inhibitory receptor expressed by lymphocytes, may play a role in limiting antitumor responses.[4] TIGIT suppresses T cell activation by promoting the generation of mature immunoregulatory dendritic cells[3]

Background

Grogan was born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.[citation needed] She completed her undergraduate degree in science at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a PhD in Immunology at Leiden University in The Netherlands. Her post-doctoral training was at the German Rheumatism Research Centre Berlin (DRFZ) in Berlin as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow.[citation needed]

She then moved to the United States to take up a position as a Howard Hughes Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco before joining Genentech in 2004. She served as the chief scientific officer of ArsenalBio in September 2019.[5] She then served as the chief scientific officer of Graphite Bio.

Grogan is on the advisory board of the Sustainable Science Institute and was the founder and the original host of the science journalism podcast produced by Genentech called Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar.[6]

References

  1. ^ "Biogen Appoints Jane Grogan as Head of Research". biogen.com. Biogen. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  2. ^ "Jane Grogan, Ph. D." biogen.com. Biogen. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  3. ^ a b Yu, Xin; Harden, Kristin; C Gonzalez, Lino; Francesco, Michelle; Chiang, Eugene; Irving, Bryan; Tom, Irene; Ivelja, Sinisa; Refino, Canio J; Clark, Hilary; Eaton, Dan (January 2009). "The surface protein TIGIT suppresses T cell activation by promoting the generation of mature immunoregulatory dendritic cells". Nature Immunology. 10 (1): 48–57. doi:10.1038/ni.1674. ISSN 1529-2908. PMID 19011627. S2CID 205361984.
  4. ^ a b Manieri, Nicholas A.; Chiang, Eugene Y.; Grogan, Jane L. (January 2017). "TIGIT: A Key Inhibitor of the Cancer Immunity Cycle". Trends in Immunology. 38 (1): 20–28. doi:10.1016/j.it.2016.10.002. PMID 27793572.
  5. ^ "ArsenalBio emerges from stealth with $85 million and a dream team to fight cancer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-12-23.
  6. ^ Bulik, Beth Snyder (26 October 2016). "Genentech's podcasting debut taps science podcast geek chic | Fierce Pharma". www.fiercepharma.com.