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Dr. Christian Hinrichs, MD

Hinrichs has been CMI Program Co-Leader since his recruitment to CINJ in 2021. He received BA and MD degrees from the combined six-year program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). He trained in general surgery at UMKC and completed a Society of Surgical Oncology fellowship in Surgical Oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship in tumor immunology with Nicholas P. Restifo at the NCI. Hinrichs then trained in internal medicine at George Washington University and in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute. As a medical oncology fellow in Steven A. Rosenberg’s laboratory, he began to pioneer cell therapy for human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers. His initial work with tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy for cervical cancer demonstrated that cell therapy can mediate durable, complete regression of epithelial cancers. His subsequent research identified the importance of both viral and non-viral antigens in curative treatments. Hinrichs went on to conduct the first clinical trials of gene-engineered T cell therapy for HPV-associated cancers using T cell receptors discovered in his laboratory. Most recently, he reported robust clinical activity in highly refractory, metastatic HPV-associated cancers – including checkpoint refractory tumors – with gene-engineered T cells targeting HPV-16 E7. He was recruited in 2021 as Co-Director of the Center of Excellence in Cancer Immunology and Metabolism (CoECIM) and as Co-Leader of the CMI Program. He also serves as Faculty Director of the IMFC Shared Resource and CINJ Chief of the Cancer Immunotherapy Section. He is the lead investigator on a multi-PI, intramural/extramural NCI Cancer Moonshot project for the discovery and development of TCR-T cell therapy that was awarded as a supplement to the CCSG grant.