Justin Kline, MD and John Schneider, MD, MPH have been elected members to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. The American Society of Clinical Investigation seeks to support the scientific efforts, educational needs, and clinical aspirations of physician-scientists to improve the health of all people. The ASCI is a nonprofit medical honor society composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists representing all medical specialties. The Society is dedicated to the advancement of research that extends understanding of diseases and improves treatment, and members are committed to mentoring future generations of physician-scientists. Founded in 1908, the ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest medical honor societies and is among the few organizations focused on the special role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care, and medical education, as well as leadership positions in academic medicine and the life sciences industry. Each year, the ASCI Council considers membership nominations of several hundred physician-scientists — aged 50 years or younger — and recommends up to 100 candidates for election based on outstanding scholarly achievement. Election is a milestone in the physician-scientist career path, and the ASCI holds its members to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, mutual respect, and collegiality.
Dr. Justin Kline is a medical oncologist and cancer immunologist with a clinical interest in lymphoma and a research focus on immune escape mechanisms in blood cancers. He was the first to demonstrate the role of PD-1/PD-L1 interactions in promoting T cell dysfunction in pre-clinical acute leukemia models – a discovery that directly catalyzed clinical trials testing the efficacy of PD-1 blockade therapy in leukemia patients. He has identified novel mechanisms of immune evasion in leukemia driven by the innate immune system and showed that activation of innate immunity with anti-CD40 antibody and STING agonist immunotherapies are highly effective in murine leukemia models. As evidence of his dedication to developing effective immunotherapies for hematologic malignancies, he serves on the task force that develops immunotherapy guidelines for patients with lymphoma. He has witnessed first-hand the effectiveness of immunotherapies, including PD-1 blockade, CD47 blockade, and CAR T cell therapy in lymphoma patients, and continue to be involved in the clinical development of anti-PD-1 therapy, anti-CD47 therapy and CAR T-cell therapy for Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas. He has developed strong collaborations with industry partners to study mechanisms of response and resistance to particular immunotherapeutic agents in pre-clinical models and in patient samples. In parallel, and through funding from the NCI, V Foundation for Cancer Research, the Cancer Research Institute, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, he has identified potential predictive biomarkers of response to anti-PD-1 therapy in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and have identified a subset of aggressive lymphomas that are refractory to CAR T cell therapy. Dr. Kline has been involved in pre-clinical testing of CD47 blockade immunotherapy in lymphoma, and in pivotal clinical trials of anti-CD47 therapy in this disease. His current work is focused on defining mechanisms by which recurrent oncogenic mutations in lymphoma cells impact the local immune microenvironment, and to develop an “immune score” for DLBCL that may effectively predict which patients will and will not respond to immunotherapies such as PD-1 blockade and CAR T cell therapy.
Dr. John Schneider is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Chicago. He also directs the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination and is a Senior Research Scientist at Howard Brown Health. Dr. Schneider has developed novel and efficacious network interventions tested in randomized controlled trials that have changed public health practice. He has completed some of the first network analyses of Black men who have sex with men and rural Indian populations. He has also developed the first sociometric network strategy to select peer change agents for HIV prevention interventions. His creative and paradigm shifting work moves beyond traditional HIV prevention interventions to impact health and behavior at both individual and network levels. Key scholarship areas to date include:
• Pioneering social network characterization within emerging epidemics
• Novel network method development
• Discovered heavy cannabis use as a factor associated with HIV care engagement among Black Sexual and Gender Minorities
• Novel network intervention implementation
Dr. Kline and Dr. Schneider will be inducted officially to the membership as part of the 2024 AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting, April 5-7.