Dr Jonathan Chee
Dr Jonathan Chee
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Jon graduated with a BSc (Hons) from the University of Melbourne. He undertook his PhD in immunology at the St Vincent’s Institute (Melbourne) where he studied the development of islet-specific immune cells in autoimmune diabetes. He was also part of the Tom Mandel Islet Transplantation Programme, which offered access to islet transplantation for people with type 1 diabetes. He joined NCARD in November 2014, and is currently a Cancer Council Western Australia Postdoctoral Fellow. He is interested in the immunological implications of why some mesothelioma patients respond better to therapies than others. He currently supervises PhD and Honours students, and lectures in Tumour Immunology at UWA.
Current projects
- The integration of mathematics and TCR sequencing to understand how an individual’s immune system contributes to therapy success
- The development of preclinical models to understand why some patients develop severe autoimmunity after cancer immunotherapy
- The development of novel epigenetic targeting tools to improve mesothelioma therapy outcomes
- Understanding the mechanisms of acquired resistance to adoptive cell therapy
Recent Highlights
- PhD candidate Joel Kidman was awarded a research scholarship from the icare NSW Dust Diseases Board
- PhD candidate Nicola Principe was awarded a UWA Richard Walter Gibbon Medical Research Scholarship
Recent publications
- Ma S, Chee J, Fear VS, Forbes CA, Boon L, Dick I, BWS Robinson, Creaney J. Pre-treatment tumour neo-antigen responses in draining lymph nodes are infrequent but predict checkpoint blockade therapy outcome. Oncoimmunology. 2019 Accepted for publication
- Fear VS, Forbes CA, Chee J, Ma S, Neeve S, Celliers L, Fisher SA, Dick I, Creaney J, Robinson BWS. Neo-antigen specific T cell responses indicate the presence of metastases before imaging. Sci Rep. 2019 Oct 10;9(1):14640.
- Trivedi PM, Fynch S, Kennedy LM, Chee J, Krishnamurthy B, O’Reilly LA, Strasser A, Kay TWH, Thomas HE. Soluble FAS ligand is not required for pancreatic islet inflammation or beta-cell destruction in non-obese diabetic mice. Cell Death Discov. 2019 Sep 23;5:136
- Chee J, Wilson C, Buzzai A, Wylie B, Forbes CA, Booth M, Principe N, Foley B, Cruickshank MN, Waithman J. Impaired T cell proliferation by ex vivoBET-inhibition impedes adoptive immunotherapy in a murine melanoma model. Epigenetics. 2019 Aug 26:1-11.
- Wylie B*, Chee J*, Forbes CA, Booth M, Stone SR, Buzzai A, Abad A, Foley B, Cruickshank MN, Waithman J. Acquired resistance during adoptive cell therapy by transcriptional silencing of immunogenic antigens. Oncoimmunology. 2019 Jun 3;8(8):1609874.
- Chee J, Watson MW, Chopra A, Nguyen B, Cook AM, Creaney J, Lesterhuis WJ, Robinson BW, Lee YCG, Nowak AK, Lake RA, McDonnell AM. Tumour associated lymphocytes in the pleural effusions of patients with mesothelioma express high levels of inhibitory receptors. BMC Res Notes. 2018 Dec 5;11(1):864.
- Fear VS, Tilsed C, Chee J, Forbes CA, Casey T, Solin JN, Lansley SM, Joost Lesterhuis W, Dick IM, Nowak AK, Robinson BW, Lake RA, Fisher SA. Combination immune checkpoint blockade as an effective therapy for mesothelioma. Oncoimmunology. 2018 Jul 30;7(10):e1494111.
- Mollah ZUA, Quah HS, Graham KL, Jhala G, Krishnamurthy B, Dharma JFM, Chee J, Trivedi PM, Pappas EG, Mackin L, Chu EPF, Akazawa S, Fynch S, Hodson C, Deans AJ, Trapani JA, Chong MMW, Bird PI, Brodnicki TC, Thomas HE, Kay TWH. Granzyme A Deficiency Breaks Immune Tolerance and Promotes Autoimmune Diabetes Through a Type I Interferon-Dependent Pathway. Diabetes. 2017 Dec;66(12):3041-3050
- Chee J, Holt RA, Robinson B, Creaney J. Immunotherapy of lung malignancies – from gene sequencing to novel therapies. Chest. 2017 Apr;151(4):891-897
- Fisher SA, Aston WJ, Chee J, Khong A, Cleaver AL, Solin JN, et al. Transient Treg depletion enhances therapeutic anti-cancer vaccination. Immun Inflamm Dis. 2017;5(1):16-28.