Daniel Munson

Background

About Daniel Munson

Throughout my journey in the medical sciences I have always strived to get closer and closer to therapeutics that touch human lives. From my humble beginnings in a neurology lab studying stress effects on hormone levels I have been fascinated by the human body. From there I migrated to a microbial testing lab where we ensured that meat products were free of contaminants and safe for human consumption. During that time, I felt the strong pull to return to academic sciences and that lead me to my graduate work at the University of Albany (SUNY) where I developed a project centered around identification of microRNAs produced by HSV-1. Following my graduate experience, I wanted to broaden my expertise away from viral disease models to a cancer focus. To this end, I joined the lab of Dr. Jill Slansky at the University of Colorado which was actively exploring T cells circulating in a breast tumor. While in my post-doc, I developed an emulsion RT-PCR technique that could isolate and amplify the T cell receptor pair from an individual cell, giving us the ability to define the population of cells present in the tumor down to the receptor level. The goal was to identify common T cell receptors across patients that could be used as therapeutic targets by peptide vaccines to activate the cells. After completion of my post-doctoral work, I took a pit stop in a clinical allergy and immunity lab as a Research Coordinator before landing at Atara Biotherapeutics. Atara combined the work that I had done inmy graduate work, the the immunological focus on T cells that I had developed during my post-doc, as they focus on treating diseases using virus (specifically EBV) specific T cells as a platform for edited cell therapies containing CARs. Working in the Translational Sciences group, I developed numerous assays to define the pharmacological aspects of Atara's clinical stage therapeutics. I was able to work closely with the Quality, Clinical Operations, Manufacturing, and Process Development groups during my time. Following my work at Atara, I stepped into a more senior management role at Artisan Biotechniologies as an Associate Director. While my focus has jumped around during my time at Artisan, the underlying technology focusing on high efficiency cell editing using a proprietary Cas12a nuclease has remained. As part of a small company I have been able to wear many hats and be involved in decision making at all levels within the company. Moving forward, I am looking to continue to learn and expand my career in the biotherapeutics space.