Director, Biotherapy Program, Providence Cancer Center
Medical Oncologist, The Oregon Clinic
Dr. Brendan Curti applies his experience in research and teaching to his roles with the Robert W. Franz Cancer Research Center and Providence Cancer Center. His research focuses on the use of cell- and cytokine-based immunotherapy to treat prostate cancer, renal cell cancer, bladder cancer and melanoma.
Dr. Curti received his M.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C., where he also completed an oncology fellowship. At the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, he served as a senior investigator in the Clinical Research Branch of the Biological Response Modifiers Program. Dr. Curti also was an associate professor at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine.
- Dr. Curti’s immunotherapy work with Andrew Weinberg, Ph.D., on OX40, a protein on white blood cells, has led to a National Institutes of Health grant to support this work, including a groundbreaking OX40 clinical trial that begins this year.
- Under Dr. Curti’s leadership, Providence Portland Medical Center became the first site to enroll patients in a phase I clinical trial of interleukin-21 (IL-21). He presented preliminary findings of the IL-21 study at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in May 2005.
- The Biotherapy Program he directs has grown into one of the busiest high-dose IL-2 programs in the country.
- Dr. Curti works in conjunction with Bernard Fox, Ph.D., to lead innovative vaccine-based clinical trials for prostate cancer.
"The Robert W. Franz Cancer Research Center under the direction of Walter Urba, M.D., Ph.D., has brought together a group of dedicated and accomplished researchers focusing on ways to boost the immune system to fight cancer. OX40 is one example of how research ideas are being brought from the laboratory to our cancer patients. Many places want to do the same kind of translational research that the OX40 project represents. At Providence Cancer Center, we are achieving that goal, but much work remains to be done to understand the interactions between the immune system and cancer, and the best ways to unlock that potential to help our patients."