Philip L. McCarthy, MD

I am Director Emeritus of the Transplant & Cellular Therapy (TCT) Program at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Roswell Park) and a member of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program. I have over 30 years of experience treating hematologic malignancy and TCT patients and designing and implementing clinical and translational research studies.

I have chaired or co-chaired multiple clinical trials, including CALGB 100104 that evaluated lenalidomide maintenance after autologous hematopoietic cell transplant (auto-HCT) for multiple myeloma (MM) patients. These studies highlight my interest in developing novel strategies for understanding, controlling and eradicating disease after cellular therapy and minimizing treatment related morbidity and mortality. Controlling Graft-versus-Host Disease (GvHD) the major toxicity of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) without compromising the Graft-versus-Tumor (GvT) effect is critical for widespread application of this form of cellular therapy.

I am very fortunate to participate in a translational team developing new strategies for the evaluation and treatment of patients with hematologic disorders and solid tumors including Dr. Hemn Mohammadpour (Cell Stress Biology), a very successful and dedicated investigator who established in 2017, the Roswell Park biorepository of serially obtained patient samples before and after allo-HCT and Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy.

We focus on understanding the biology of cellular therapies and predicting and minimizing treatment-related morbidity and mortality. He is defining the role of Galectin-3 (Gal-3) in preclinical allo-HCT and we have been conducting an analysis of Gal-3 as a plasma biomarker for predicting the onset of clinical acute GvHD and predicting mortality after all-HCT. This may allow investigators to develop strategies to intervene early before the develop of severe GvHD.

I continue to facilitate the development of auto- and allo-TCT translational research projects studying approaches to less toxic treatment. I am co-leader of the Transplant and Cellular Therapy Translational Research Group with Dr. Elizabeth Repasky (Immunology). A specific disease interest is Multiple Myeloma (MM). We participate with Dr. Jens Hillengass, leader of the Roswell Park MM program to understand the molecular biology and the immunobiology of MM.

Understanding the immune microenvironment and the relation to the pathogenesis of MM should allow for the development of immune strategies to treat this disease. We continue to develop translational research projects within the CCSG that will lead to advances in the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic cancers especially immune effector cells and developing safer strategies for cellular therapy, especially auto- and allo-HCT therapies.

I am very excited to be provide mentorship and support for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who are studying novel approaches to the understanding and treatment of cancer. I have had the good fortune to have co-mentored with Dr. Repasky, Dr. Mohammadpour who after receiving a K99/R01 award from the NHLBI is an independent Roswell Park faculty member. I participate in the lab meetings of Drs. Mohammadpour and Repasky as they develop novel approaches to understanding the immune microenvironment of cancer.