Diversity in Life Sciences

Jonathan Deane earned his B.S. and Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine. His graduate student work was focused on the role of regulatory subunits of the lipid kinase PI3K in immune and leukemia function. At the NIAID, his postdoctoral fellowship was concentrated on the role of nucleic acid-sensing receptors in the innate immune system. Specifically, he focused on TLR7 and MDA5 to understand that expression levels of these molecules contributes to the development of autoimmune disease. As an investigator at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, Jonathan spent over 10 years in drug discovery considering ways to apply basic research to making novel therapeutics. This led to the nomination of 3 clinical candidates including LHC165, an intratumoral TLR7 agonist. He also helped outlicense IOV-3001, a novel IL-2 biologic which is now being developed by Iovance. Since July 2020, Jonathan has been the Director of Immunology at Kumquat Biosciences, a startup company dedicated to developing novel therapeutics in the fields of oncology, immune oncology and immunology.