Title: Assistant Professor
Company: Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Carl J. DeSelm, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in medical education.
With years of experience to his credit, Dr. DeSelm has excelled at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as an assistant professor and principal investigator since 2018. In this position, he supervises his eponymous laboratory, aids in the analysis and conducting of experiments, and develops CAR T-Cell therapies and cancer immune therapy research to help develop new radiation treatments for pancreatic cancer. Moreover, Dr. DeSelm is responsible for reviewing grants, contributing to the core committee for the Cancer Biology PhD program, and offering his expertise to the Institutional Review Board at Washington University.
Dr. DeSelm has been additionally active at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow since 2016. During this time, he also served at the aforementioned medical facility as a resident physician from 2013 to 2018 and a research fellow from 2015 to 2018. He began his career as a general medicine intern at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and resident physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital between 2012 and 2013. Beyond his primary responsibilities, Dr. DeSelm has been affiliated with such organizations as the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, the American Society for Cell and Gene Therapy, and the Radiation Research Society.
To support his professional ambitions, Dr. DeSelm pursued an education at Dartmouth College, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in 2004. He continued his academic efforts with a Doctor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis in 2009. Following these accomplishments, Dr. DeSelm concluded his studies at the aforementioned university in 2012, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy in molecular and cellular biology with a concentration in bone biology and immunology.
In light of his impressive undertakings, Dr. DeSelm has accrued several accolades throughout his career. In 2018, he was presented with the Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health. He was subsequently recognized as a Top Doctor by Castle Connolly in 2020. Furthermore, Dr. DeSelm was celebrated by Agilent with a National Early Career Professor Award.
Dr. DeSelm has attributed his success to his education, the support of important figures in his life, his experience with his senior fellowship in New York, and the opportunities to creatively work alongside exceptional individuals in his field. In addition to these factors, he has been significantly inspired by his PhD mentor, Steven Peltelbaum, as well as his wife, whose support has been critical in finding success in a laboratory environment.
Dr. DeSelm is particularly proud of demonstrating the synergistic effects of radiation therapy with CAR T Cells through clinical trials, the result of which led to the rise of standard care for leukemia and lymphoma. Among the highlights of his career, he fondly recalls publishing a recent research paper on developing a living drug, car macrophage therapy, for Alzheimer’s disease, a groundbreaking achievement that will hopefully lead to clinical trials in the near future. Additionally, he is grateful to develop new classes of living drugs utilizing antigen-presenting cells that will initiate immune responses against tumors during cancer treatment. In the coming years, Dr. DeSelm hopes to continue thriving in academic medicine and usher his drugs toward trials in human patients that will eventually be approved to treat cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
For more information, please visit:
Carl DeSelm Lab
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