Marcel van den Brink, M.D., Ph.D.

Marcel van den Brink, M.D., Ph.D., president of City of Hope Cancer Center, main campus in Los Angeles, and National Medical Center, chief physician executive and the Deana and Steve Campbell Chief Physician Executive Distinguished Chair, is a globally recognized leader in the basic and translational science of bone marrow transplantation (BMT), the microbiome and cancer immunotherapy.

His specialties include immune reconstitution and graft-versus-host disease — side effects many BMT patients experience — as well as the impact of the microbiome on immunotherapy for cancer. A researcher who has opened new fields of investigation and improved patient outcomes, Dr. Van den Brink has pursued innovative ways to improve and optimize BMT, developing strategies to make the process less toxic and lower the rate of recurrence. Throughout his career, he has maintained an intense focus on converting scientific discoveries in his laboratory into better therapies for patients around the world.

Dr. Van den Brink joined City of Hope in part because of their shared commitment to advancing the frontiers of cancer care and research. He is known for his inclusive approach to leadership and his devotion to providing junior faculty colleagues with mentorship and career development opportunities.

A recipient of numerous national and international awards, Dr. Van den Brink is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among many leadership roles, he serves as vice chair of the board for Deutsche Knochenmark Stiftung, a global donor registration that facilitates 40% of all unrelated allogenic blood stem cell donations worldwide.

Before he joined City of Hope, Dr. Van den Brink served in leadership positions at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for 24 years, most recently as the Alan N. Houghton Chair in Immunology and the head of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies.

Van den Brink Lab

Translational research in the Marcel van den Brink Lab aims to improve outcomes for patients with hematologic malignancies after hematopoietic cell transplantation and immunotherapies. The lab’s three research groups are focused on understanding the gut microbiome as an immune modulator, the role of thymic regeneration in immune response and clinical outcomes, and the mechanisms of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in hematologic malignancies. The lab is investigating how the gut microbiota interacts with the immune system to affect immunotherapy outcomes, studying strategies to enhance thymic regeneration and T cell reconstitution after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and developing novel CAR T cell therapeutic approaches.

Research bio

Awards

• 2022, Eckhard Podack Memorial Lecture 
• 2022, E. Donnall Thomas Tandem Lecture 
• 2020, Foreign Member of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
• 2015, Delete Blood Cancer Award
• 2015, Till and McCulloch Lectureship Award 
• 2015, Richard O’Reilly Stem Cell Transplant Lectureship Award 
• 2015, Jaap de Graeff Award 
• 2014, European Federation of Immunological Societies Immunology Letters Lecture Award 
• 2013, Association of American Physicians

Memberships

• 2021-present, Member NCI Board of Scientific Counselors (NCI BSC)
• 2021-present, Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS)
• 2020-present, European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation
• 2020-present, Foreign Member of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
• 2018-present, American Association for Cancer Research
• 2015-present, Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC)
• 2013-present, Association of American Physicians
• 2004-present, American Society of Clinical Investigation    
• 2003-present, Transplantation Society
• 2000-present, American Society for Clinical Oncology
• 1999-present, American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy
• 1998-present, American Association for the Advancement of Science    
• 1997-present, Massachusetts Medical Society
• 1996-present, American Society of Hematology
• 1988-present, American Association of Immunologists

Publications

• DeWolf S, Elhanati Y, Nichols K, Waters NR, Nguyen CL, Slingerland JB, Rodriguez N, Lyudovyk O, Giardina PA, Kousa AI, Andrlová H, Ceglia N, Fei T, Kappagantula R, Li Y, Aleynick N, Baez P, Murali R, Hayashi A, Lee N, Gipson B, Rangesa M, Katsamakis Z, Dai A, Blouin AG, Arcila M, Masilionis I, Chaligne R, Ponce DM, Landau HJ, Politikos I, Tamari R, Hanash AM, Jenq RR, Giralt SA, Markey KA, Zhang Y, Perales MA, Socci ND, Greenbaum BD, Iacobuzio-Donahue CA, Hollmann TJ, Van den Brink MRM, Peled JU. Tissue-specific features of the T cell repertoire after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in human and mouse. Sci Transl Med. 2023 Jul 26;15(706):eabq0476. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq0476. Epub 2023 Jul 26. PMID: 37494469. 
• Koyama M, Hippe DS, Srinivasan S, Proll SC, Miltiadous O, Li N, Zhang P, Ensbey KS, Hoffman NG, Schmidt CR, Yeh AC, Minnie SA, Strenk SM, Fiedler TL, Hattangady N, Kowalsky J, Grady WM, Degli-Esposti MA, Varelias A, Clouston AD, Van den Brink MRM, Dey N, Randolph TW, Markey KA, Fredricks DN, Hill GR. Intestinal microbiota controls graft-versus-host disease independent of donor-host genetic disparity. Immunity. 2023 Aug 8;56(8):1876-1893.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2023.06.024. Epub 2023 Jul 21. PMID: 37480848. 
• Blair LM, Akhund-Zade J, Katsamakis ZA, Smibert OC, Wolfe AE, Giardina P, Slingerland J, Bercovici S, Perales MA, Taur Y, Van den Brink MRM, Peled JU, Markey KA. Circulating microbial cell-free DNA is increased during neutropenia following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Blood Adv. 2023 Jul 3:bloodadvances.2023010208. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2023010208. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37399491. 
• Schluter J, Djukovic A, Taylor BP, Yan J, Duan C, Hussey GA, Liao C, Sharma S, Fontana E, Amoretti LA, Wright RJ, Dai A, Peled JU, Taur Y, Perales MA, Siranosian BA, Bhatt AS, Van den Brink MRM, Pamer EG, Xavier JB. The TaxUMAP atlas: Efficient display of large clinical microbiome data reveals ecological competition in protection against bacteremia. Cell Host Microbe. 2023 Jul 12;31(7):1126-1139.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2023.05.027. Epub 2023 Jun 16. PMID: 37329880. 
• Nguyen CL, Markey KA, Miltiadous O, Dai A, Waters N, Sadeghi K, Fei T, Shouval R, Taylor BP, Liao C, Slingerland JB, Slingerland AE, Clurman AG, Maloy MA, Bohannon L, Giardina PA, Brereton DG, Armijo GK, Fontana E, Gradissimo A, Gyurkocza B, Sung AD, Chao NJ, Devlin SM, Taur Y, Giralt SA, Perales MA, Xavier JB, Pamer EG, Peled JU, Gomes ALC, Van den Brink MRM. High-resolution analyses of associations between medications, microbiome, and mortality in cancer patients. Cell. 2023 Jun 8;186(12):2705-2718.e17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.05.007. Epub 2023 Jun 8. PMID: 37295406; PMCID: PMC10390075. 
• Fei T, Funnell T, Waters NR, Raj SS, Devlin SM, Dai A, Miltiadous O, Shouval R, Lv M, Peled JU, Ponce DM, Perales MA, Gönen M, Van den Brink MRM. Scalable log-ratio Lasso regression enhances microbiome feature selection for predictive models. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 May 3:2023.05.02.538599. doi: 10.1101/2023.05.02.538599. PMID: 37205350; PMCID: PMC10187229. 
• Seike K, Kiledal A, Fujiwara H, Henig I, Burgos da Silva M, Van den Brink MRM, Hein R, Hoostal M, Liu C, Oravecz-Wilson K, Lauder E, Li L, Sun Y, Schmidt TM, Shah YM, Jenq RR, Dick G, Reddy P. Ambient oxygen levels regulate intestinal dysbiosis and GVHD severity after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Immunity. 2023 Feb 14;56(2):353-368.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2023.01.007. Epub 2023 Feb 2. PMID: 36736321. 
• Ponce DM, Alousi AM, Nakamura R, Slingerland J, Calafiore M, Sandhu KS, Barker JN, Devlin S, Shia J, Giralt S, Perales MA, Moore G, Fatmi S, Soto C, Gomes A, Giardina P, Marcello L, Yan X, Tang T, Dreyer K, Chen J, Daley WL, Peled JU, Van den Brink MRM, Hanash AM. A Phase 2 study of interleukin-22 and systemic corticosteroids as initial treatment for acute GVHD of the lower GI tract. Blood. 2023 Mar 23;141(12):1389-1401. doi: 10.1182/blood.2021015111. PMID: 36399701; PMCID: PMC10163318. 
• Schwabkey ZI, Wiesnoski DH, Chang CC, Tsai WB, Pham D, Ahmed SS, Hayase T, Ortega Turrubiates MR, El-Himri RK, Sanchez CA, Hayase E, Frenk Oquendo AC, Miyama T, Halsey TM, Heckel BE, Brown AN, Jin Y, Raybaud M, Prasad R, Flores I, McDaniel L, Chapa V, Lorenzi PL, Warmoes MO, Tan L, Swennes AG, Fowler S, Conner M, McHugh K, Graf T, Jensen VB, Peterson CB, Do KA, Zhang L, Shi Y, Wang Y, Galloway-Pena JR, Okhuysen PC, Daniel-MacDougall CR, Shono Y, Burgos da Silva M, Peled JU, Van den Brink MRM, Ajami N, Wargo JA, Reddy P, Valdivia RH, Davey L, Rondon G, Srour SA, Mehta RS, Alousi AM, Shpall EJ, Champlin RE, Shelburne SA, Molldrem JJ, Jamal MA, Karmouch JL, Jenq RR. Diet-derived metabolites and mucus link the gut microbiome to fever after cytotoxic cancer treatment. Sci Transl Med. 2022 Nov 16;14(671):eabo3445. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abo3445. Epub 2022 Nov 16. PMID: 36383683; PMCID: PMC10028729. 
• Shouval R, Waters NR, Gomes ALC, Zuanelli Brambilla C, Fei T, Devlin SM, Nguyen CL, Markey KA, Dai A, Slingerland JB, Clurman AG, Fontana E, Amoretti LA, Wright RJ, Hohl TM, Taur Y, Sung AD, Weber D, Hashimoto D, Teshima T, Chao NJ, Holler E, Scordo M, Giralt SA, Perales MA, Peled JU, Van den Brink MRM. Conditioning regimens are associated with distinct patterns of microbiota injury in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Clin Cancer Res. 2023 Jan 4;29(1):165-173. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-22-1254. PMID: 36322005; PMCID: PMC9812902. 

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