John E CONNOLLY

John joined A*STAR Singapore Immunology Network (A*STAR SIgN) in 2010, where he founded and ran the immunomonitoring platform, before moving to A*STAR IMCB in 2013. John’s group at A*STAR IMCB explores broad topics in translational immunology, including human studies in dendritic cell biology, immunometabolism, primary immunodeficiency, and immunomonitoring of clinical infectious disease cohorts. From 2011, he has been a Director of ASPIRE, the A*STAR Programme in Translational Research on Infectious Disease. He has also held concurrent appointments as Chief Scientific Officer at Tessa Therapeutics in Singapore from 2017 to 2020, and now as Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in San Francisco, CA, USA.

John received his PhD in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School and studied human dendritic cell biology under Dr Michael Fanger.  During this time he was involved in the development of immunotherapeutic preclinical models and clinical trials for Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).  He moved to the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, a fully translational research institute dedicated to rationally designed vaccines against cancer and infectious disease.  John served as the Director of Research Initiatives for the Baylor Research Institute, leading a large integrated translational research resource and multi-institutional programs that involved a number of international sites.  During his tenure at Baylor, John was a central core facility director of the NIAID Centers for Translational Research on Human Immunology and Biodefense, an NIH funded consortium of basic, translational research and clinical trials focused on vaccine design.  John is the past President of the Board of Directors of The American Cancer Society in N. Texas. 

As a human immunologist, John’s research interests focus on target discovery for immune modulation.