Ian Cd. Johnston MA, PhD

Dr. Johnston is responsible for the development of cutting-edge technologies to enable cell and gene therapies to be applied routinely in the clinic. Since joining Miltenyi Biotec in 1999, Dr. Johnston has developed a number of reagents and procedures to improve the efficiency of genetic modification of primary cells such as human T and stem cells. A number of these procedures have been fully automated on a functionally closed cell processing platform – the CliniMACS® Prodigy. In addition, Dr. Johnston has led the development of numerous products for magnetic isolation of cells, molecules, and organelles and for use in the field of HIV research. He has been the Principle Investigator on a number of European consortium grants focused on the genetic modification of stem cells, most recently Cell-PID and STUDENT. His group is also investigating new targets for Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR) to be used in T cell cancer immunotherapies.

Prior to joining Miltenyi, he studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University where he also completed a Ph.D. studying immunopathological mechanisms in the CNS. This was followed by postdoctoral research at Würzburg University with Prof. Volker ter Meulen working with recombinant measles virus systems, supported by two fellowships from the Wellcome Trust and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.