Cliona M Rooney, Ph.D.

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Cliona M Rooney, Ph.D.

Professor

Phone

832-824-4693

Email

crooney@bcm.edu

Positions

Professor: Pediatrics-Hem-Onc Cell & Gene
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Education

Advanced Training from Yale University School Of Medicine: 01/1987 - New Haven, CT United States

Advanced Training from University Of Birmingham: 01/1985 - Birmingham, United Kingdom

Advanced Training from University Of Bristol: 01/1984 - Bristol, United Kingdom

Ph.D. from University Of Cambridge: 01/1981 - Cambridge, United Kingdom

B.Sc. from University Of East Anglia: 01/1978 - Norwich, United Kingdom

Professional Interests

Virus-specific T cells for treatment of viral diseases

Professional Statement

I received my Ph.D. in Immunology from Cambridge University in 1981, then pursued postdoctoral fellowships in virology, immunovirology and molecular virology with a focus on Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) at the University of Birmingham, UK with Alan Rickinson and at Yale with George Miller. I became a member of the St. Mary’s Branch of the Ludwig Institute in 1987, where I studied the regulation of the lytic to latent cycle switch in EBV. In 1990 I joined the faculty of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (SJCRH) in Memphis, Tennessee. There, in response to the high rate of post-transplant EBV-associated lymphoma in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients, I evaluated the use of EBV-specific T-cells (EBVSTs) for the prevention and treatment of this disease, together with Helen Heslop, M.D. The remarkable safety and efficacy of this approach led us to extend virus-specific T-cell therapy to other viruses that caused morbidity and mortality in HSCT recipients, and to the EBV-positive malignancies that occur in immunocompetent individuals. We continued this approach after moving to Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, where I am now a full Professor and Director of the Translational Research Laboratories of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (CAGT). This includes responsibility for the cell therapy manufacturing group in our GMP facility. I have a particular interest in strategies that render T-cells resistant to inhibition by the tumor microenvironment. For example, I developed a dominant-negative TGF-beta receptor, that has now been tested in several clinical trials at Baylor, MD Anderson and the University of Pennsylvania, and a constitutively active IL-7 receptor that we are testing in combination with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) for GD2 in patients with GD2+ve malignancies and in EBV-specific T-cells for lymphoma. To add a safety switch for genetically enhanced T-cells, I developed the inducible caspase 9-based suicide gene for use in T-cells with David Spencer. This strategy has proved successful in clinical trials at Baylor and other Centers. I am also evaluating the use of virus-specific T cells (VSTs) as hosts for CARs, so that CAR-VST activation and expansion can be induced by endogenous viruses, viral vaccines or oncolytic viruses. I am the Director of the BCM graduate program in Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine (TBMM), that provides training for immunotherapists among other translational scientists. I have been the primary mentor for 14 graduate students, 29 postdoctoral fellows and 13 clinical fellows, many of whom are now leading their own programs in cellular immunotherapy in other Institutions in the US and abroad. I have served on over 50 graduate student committees, 14 of which are current.