Gregory Allen, MD, PhD

Asst Professor In Residence
Medicine
Research Description: 

Greg Allen, MD/PhD is a physician-scientist specializing in designing and translating next-generation immune cell therapies for solid tumors. He cares for patients with lung cancer at the Hellen Diller Cancer Center and runs a research laboratory at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

The Allen Lab is focused on developing and applying advanced synthetic biology tools to dissect the fundamental design principles of the immune system. We use synthetic receptors, cytokines, and secondary messengers to generate novel alternatively engineered tumor-immune eco-systems, which we then interrogate with high-dimensional tools. From this ground-up systems biology perspective we are attempting to rationally design engineered cells to tackle the most challenging diseases we face in the clinic.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Immunology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Our group develops and applies advances in synthetic biology to better understand biological systems and then to re-engineer these systems to tackle disease.
Publications: 

An immune-based tool platform for in vivo cell clearance.

Life science alliance

Zhang J, Tsukui T, Wu X, Brito A, Trumble JM, Caraballo JC, Allen GM, Zavala-Solorio J, Zhang C, Paw J, Lim WA, Geng J, Kutskova Y, Freund A, Kolumam G, Sheppard D, Cohen RL

Synthetic cytokine circuits that drive T cells into immune-excluded tumors.

Science (New York, N.Y.)

Allen GM, Frankel NW, Reddy NR, Bhargava HK, Yoshida MA, Stark SR, Purl M, Lee J, Yee JL, Yu W, Li AW, Garcia KC, El-Samad H, Roybal KT, Spitzer MH, Lim WA

Changes in older adults' life space during lung cancer treatment: A mixed methods cohort study.

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Wong ML, Shi Y, Smith AK, Miaskowski C, Boscardin WJ, Cohen HJ, Lam V, Mazor M, Metzger L, Presley CJ, Williams GR, Loh KP, Ursem CJ, Friedlander TW, Blakely CM, Gubens MA, Allen G, Shumay D, Walter LC

Precise T cell recognition programs designed by transcriptionally linking multiple receptors.

Science (New York, N.Y.)

Williams JZ, Allen GM, Shah D, Sterin IS, Kim KH, Garcia VP, Shavey GE, Yu W, Puig-Saus C, Tsoi J, Ribas A, Roybal KT, Lim WA