Michael O'DwyerFounder

Ireland - Galway Metropolitan Area

I am an experienced Clinician Scientist with a strong track record in clinical and translational research in blood cancers. A graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway I undertook training in Internal Medicine and Hematology in Ireland, before moving to Portland, Oregon, where I was a Fellow and then Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Oregon Health & Sciences University. While there I worked on the initial development of imatinib with Brian Druker and made important original observations on the role of clonal evolution in CML. Since 2007 I have been Professor of Hematology at NUI Galway. I have been actively involved in clinical and translational research and drug development in blood cancers and have been involved in the clinical development of many ground breaking treatments in the field of blood cancers, including imatinib, ibrutinib and daratumumab. In recent years my main research focus has been Multiple Myeloma. My laboratory research has focused on three major areas: (1) how aberrant glycosylation can influence cellular adhesion, trafficking and immune evasion in Multiple Myeloma (2) the role of the immune microenvironment in Multiple Myeloma and (3) the genetic modification of NK cells as cell therapy for cancer, including incorporation of TRAIL variants and targeting of inhibitory checkpoints. I have over 100 peer reviewed publications, numerous abstract presentations and am listed as an inventor on more than 10 patents, including granted patents covering expression of DR4 and DR5 TRAIL variants on NK cells, optimized affinity CD38 CAR-NK cells and deletion of inhibitory checkpoints on NK cells. I have been a recipient of grant funding from the Health Research Board, the Irish Cancer Society and Science Foundation Ireland. I am a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the European Hematology Association (EHA) Scientific Working Party on Immunotherapy of Hematologic Malignancies and the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG). I am also a Visiting Professor, Xi’an Jiatong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China. In 2015 I founded ONK Therapeutics with the goal of developing off the shelf, optimized NK cell therapies for cancer, exploiting dual targeting of the death receptor pathway in addition to incorporating a CAR, along with additional strategies to enhance persistence and overcome exhaustion, exploiting novel gene editing approaches.