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Jeffrey Bluestone

Topic: Biography

 From HandWiki - Reading time: 7 min
Jeffrey A. Bluestone
Born{1953
NationalityAmerican
Alma materRutgers State University, Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science
Known forT cell activation and immune tolerance in autoimmunity, organ transplantation, and cancer[verification needed]
Scientific career
FieldsImmunology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, San Francisco
Doctoral advisorCarlos Lopez
Other academic advisorsDavid Sachs[not verified in body]
Websitebluestonelab.ucsf.edu

Jeffrey A. Bluestone (born in 1953) is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Metabolism and Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco (as of January 2022),[1] and was, for a number of years, an earlier executive vice chancellor and provost of that university.[2] He began the UCSF affiliation in 2000, after earlier extended positions at the NCI-NIH, and at The University of Chicago.[1][third-party source needed] Bluestone earned his undergraduate and masters degrees in microbiology from Rutgers State University, and his doctoral degree in immunology from Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science.[1][third-party source needed] His current research is focused on understanding T cell activation and immune tolerance in autoimmunity and organ transplantation.[3][third-party source needed] In April 2016, he co-founded and served as the president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy,[4]. In 2019, he co-founded and is Chief Executive Officer and President of Sonoma Biotherapeutics.[5]

Early life and education

Jeffrey A. Bluestone was born in 1953 in Ft. Sill, OK. He earned his B.S. in biology and M.S. in microbiology from Rutgers State University in 1974 and 1977, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in immunology from the Sloan-Kettering division of the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences|Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science, in 1980, under the supervision of Carlos Lopez (immunologist).

Career

Bluestone started his career in a series of positions at the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, where he rose over a period of 7 years to become a senior investigator in the NCI's Immunology Branch.[1][third-party source needed] He then took a position at The University of Chicago as a member of the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research, and as an associate professor (in pathology[citation needed]).[1][third-party source needed] Over 13 years—from 1987 to 2000[citation needed]—he rose to become chairman of the University's Committee on Immunology,[citation needed] and director of that institute,[1] a role he served in from 1995 to 2000.[citation needed]

In 2000, he moved to the University of California, San Francisco,[1] to direct the UCSF Diabetes Center and metabolic research unit.[citation needed] Beginning at least 2011, Bluestone headed the Immune Tolerance Network,[needs update][2][6][third-party source needed] a consortium of over 1000 scientists to focus efforts on the development of immune tolerance therapies,[citation needed] a position that as of January 2022 he listed as a previous one at his UCSF profile.[1] At one time, he was in leadership at the Brehm Coalition;[clarification needed][when?][6] as of January 2022 he was listed as an emeritus member there.[7]

Bluestone became UCSF's interim vice chancellor of research in 2008.[1] In 2009, the efforts of a UCSF committee led by Bluestone made that university a leading institutional recipient of science-directed funds available to universities from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.[1][third-party source needed] He became executive vice chancellor and provost of UCSF in 2010,[1][2] a position he held until 2015.[citation needed] As provost, as of 2011 he had set up collaborations with Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Bayer,[2][needs update] as well as many other UCSF-industry collaborations.[citation needed]

As of January 2022, Bluestone is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology, and the director of the Hormone Research Institute in the Diabetes Center at UCSF.[1] (He is a previous director of the Diabetes Center,[when?] per se.[1]) As of April 2016, he was serving as the president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.[4]


Research

As of January 2022, Bluestone's research group focuses on studying the role of T cell receptors on regulatory T cells ("Tregs").[citation needed] In the early 90s, he identified the role of CD28 and its interaction with CTLA-4[8][non-primary source needed] The development of soluble receptors of CTLA-4 led to the development of the drugs abatacept and later belatacept.[9][non-primary source needed] Further work with James P. Allison to target CTLA-4 resulted in the development of immune checkpoint therapies also known as immunotherapy.[citation needed] This led to the clinical development of ipilimumab (Yervoy™), which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.[citation needed] Their current work on understanding Tregs has been discussed as an avenue to further developments in the treatment Type 1 Diabetes.[10]

Awards and recognition

Bluestone was elected as a fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006,[1][third-party source needed] and as a member of the National Academy of Medicine.[when?][citation needed]. In 2023, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

He has received the Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Levine Excellence in Clinical Research Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,[when?] and an award for distinguished alumni from his doctoral institution.[when?][1][third-party source needed]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Bluestone, Jeffrey (January 26, 2022). "Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD". Profiles.UCSF.edu. https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jeffrey.bluestone. "Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, is the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology and is the Director of the Hormone Research Institute in the Diabetes Center. ... In March 2010 Dr. Bluestone was appointed executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF)... Previously he served in a number of posts including Director of the UCSF Diabetes Center, as Director of the Immune Tolerance Network. In June 2008 Dr. Bluestone served as interim vice chancellor of research... In 2009, Dr. Bluestone led the UCSF committee to strategize and secure funds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, making the campus one of the top institutional recipients in the nation of science-based stimulus funds. Dr. Bluestone joined the UCSF faculty in 2000. ... He has received numerous accolades for his work, including his 2006 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Mary Tyler Moore & Robert Levine Excellence in Clinical Research Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and the distinguished alumni award from the Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science. / Prior to joining UCSF, Bluestone was at the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research, rising over 13 years from an associate professor to the director of the institute. He had previously worked for seven years in various roles at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, ultimately becoming a senior investigator in the Immunology Branch of the National Cancer Institute. ... Bluestone earned both his BS in biology and his MS in microbiology from Rutgers State University, and his PhD in immunology from the Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science (Sloan-Kettering Division)." 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Timmerman, Luke & Bluestone, Jeff (10 March 2011). "Q&A: UCSF's Jeff Bluestone on the Tricky Balancing Act Between Academia and Industry" (2100-word interview, 300-word introductory biosketch). Xconomy.com (Boston, Mass.: Xconomy, Inc.). http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/03/10/qa-ucsfs-jeff-bluestone-on-the-tricky-balancing-act-between-academia-and-industry/. "[Third party content from biosketch.] Jeff Bluestone has one of those jobs in academia... / As executive vice chancellor and provost... / Bluestone, 57, took on this responsibility about a year ago, joining the new leadership team around Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the former president of product development at Genentech. Before taking the job, Bluestone was best known in academia as a world-class diabetes researcher, and as a leader of the well-known Immune Tolerance Network. But Bluestone is also well known in the business world, having served as a scientific advisor to numerous biotech companies over the years, like ViaCyte, MedImmune, Pfizer, Biogen, and XDx. Now through one of the top jobs at UCSF, he has applied his experience in both academia and industry to help craft new institutional partnerships with Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Bayer. ...he’s one of the featured speakers at Xconomy San Francisco’s big event on the 20-year outlook for Bay Area life sciences, coming up next Wednesday. ... Here are excerpts from our conversation earlier this week, edited for length and clarity..." 
  3. ↑ About the Bluestone research, his UCSF profile, op. cit., says the following: "His research over the past 25 years has focused on understanding the basic processes that control T cell activation and immune tolerance in autoimmunity and organ transplantation. He and members of his lab have developed soluble receptor antagonists; monoclonal antibodies and animals deficient in individual members of TCR and co-stimulatory pathways to define their individual roles in transplant rejection and autoimmunity including a special emphasis on a specialized subset of T cells termed “regulatory T cells” (Treg). Tregs control fundamental aspect of immune homeostasis. During the last several years, his research has adapted the animal studies using biologics and cell based therapies to develop therapeutics that can be used in humans with autoimmunity and under conditions of allotransplant rejection. Moreover, a strong role for antigen-specific Tregs have been found in these model systems and further evidence in humanized mice and transplant patients that alloantigen-specific Tregs are more effective. Thus, the major goal of this work is to identify the antigen-specificity of thymic- and peripherally-derived Tregs with the expectation that these TCRs can be adapted for immunotherapy. Finally, his lab initiated several projects to determine mechanisms that control Treg stability. The goal is to develop approaches using pharmacogenomics to either stabilize or destabilize Tregs in autoimmunity and cancer."
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Farley, Pete (12 April 2016). "UCSF Immunologist to Head New Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy". UC San Francisco (UCSF News). https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/04/402416/ucsf-immunologist-head-new-parker-institute-cancer-immunotherapy. Retrieved 4 August 2016. 
  5. ↑ Fidler, Ben. "'Treg' cell therapy: bringing CAR-Treg to autoimmune disease". https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/treg-cell-therapy-biotech-startups/629634/. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Brehm Coalition Staff & Bluestone, Jeffrey (4 August 2016). "About Us / Leadership / Jeffrey Bluestone". BrehmCoalition.org. https://www.brehmcoalition.org/about/leadership05.php. "Jeffrey Bluestone, M.S., Ph.D., is the Director of the University of California, San Francisco Diabetes Center and the Immune Tolerance Network and is AW and Mary Clausen Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. [He] received his undergraduate degree in biology from Rutgers University and a doctorate in immunology from Cornell University. From there he held positions at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and served as the Director of the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research." [third-party source needed]
  7. ↑ Brehm Coalition Staff (26 January 2022). "About / Emeritus Members / Jeffrey Bluestone". BrehmCoalition.org. https://www.brehmcoalition.org/about/emeritus-members. 
  8. ↑ Walunas, TL; Lenschow, DJ; Bakker, CY; Linsley, PS; Freeman, GJ; Green, JM; Thompson, CB; Bluestone, JA (August 1994). "CTLA-4 can function as a negative regulator of T cell activation.". Immunity 1 (5): 405–13. doi:10.1016/1074-7613(94)90071-x. PMID 7882171. 
  9. ↑ Levisetti, MG; Padrid, PA; Szot, GL; Mittal, N; Meehan, SM; Wardrip, CL; Gray, GS; Bruce, DS et al. (1 December 1997). "Immunosuppressive effects of human CTLA4Ig in a non-human primate model of allogeneic pancreatic islet transplantation.". Journal of Immunology 159 (11): 5187–91. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.159.11.5187. PMID 9548454. 
  10. ↑ Conovo, Susan (26 June 2002). "Stopping Diabetes". www.cumc.columbia.edu (In Vivo) (11). http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/publications/in-vivo/Vol1_Iss11_june26_02/stopping-diabetes.html. Retrieved 4 August 2016. 

External links



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