David Barrett joined Kite as the VP of Cell Biology in September 2022 where he serves as the lead of Translational Medicine and the Santa Monica and Philadelphia based research teams. He received a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering, as well as a combined MD/PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2004. He went on to complete a Pediatrics Residency and Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2010 before starting his own lab as a physician scientist. During his time in the Cellular Therapy and Transplant Section at CHOP, he worked on the preclinical models for the cell therapy product that became known as Kymriah. Dr. Barrett cared for CAR T cell patients at CHOP from 2012-2020 and ran his lab investigating translational science on CAR T trials, resulting in observations about cytokine release syndrome and the role of macrophages, the nature of antigen escape and the importance of juvenile cells in the pheresis and infusion products. In 2020 he left academics and joined Tmunity Therapeutics where he oversaw preclinical development and translational science on the solid tumor CAR T cell programs.