Rate My Professor Saul Priceman

Saul Priceman, Ph.D., served as associate professor in the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope, where he also held the role of associate director. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunotherapy and tumor immunology at City of Hope in 2013, following his Ph.D. in molecular and medical pharmacology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010, M.S. in biology from California State University, Northridge in 2004, and B.S. in microbiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2000. During his 14-year tenure at City of Hope, beginning with postdoctoral research and progressing to faculty positions such as assistant research professor and associate professor, Dr. Priceman specialized in T cell immunobiology and cancer immunotherapies, with a primary focus on developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies for solid tumors.

His laboratory advanced innovative CAR T cell strategies targeting antigens including PSCA for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, MUC16 for advanced ovarian cancer, and HER2 for breast cancer brain metastases, successfully bringing several therapies into phase 1 clinical trials. Significant milestones include securing $9.28 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for a CAR T cell immunotherapy clinical trial targeting HER2-positive breast cancer with brain metastases and demonstrating efficacy of CAR T cells for prostate cancer in preclinical and clinical studies. Key publications include "PSCA-CAR T cell therapy in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer: a phase 1 trial" (Nature Medicine, 2024), "Targeting advanced prostate cancer with STEAP1 chimeric antigen receptor T cell and tumor-localized IL-12 immunotherapy" (Nature Communications, 2023), "Effective combination immunotherapy using oncolytic viruses to deliver CAR targets to solid tumors" (Science Translational Medicine, 2020), and "Chimeric Antigen Receptors With Mutated IgG4 Fc Spacer Avoid T Cell Exhaustion and Provide Eradication of Leukemia" (Molecular Therapy, 2015). His research produced high-impact publications in leading journals, numerous patents with licensed technologies for clinical advancement, and grants from the National Cancer Institute, Department of Defense, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Dr. Priceman received the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Young Investigator Award in 2016 and the Prostate Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award in 2015. His work has profoundly influenced cancer immunotherapy by overcoming challenges in solid tumor microenvironments, improving CAR T cell persistence, function, and antitumor activity.