Bryan Irving, PhD ’93 : Pursuing novelty to make a difference

He once posed as his identical twin brother, Brad, a former member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, for a one night-only performance. Irving’s proclivity has also led to a career dedicated to exploring new approaches to autoimmunity and tumor immunotherapy.

“Discovering something novel is far more rewarding than making incremental advances,” he says. “In research, it is important to take risks. I learned to respect, but not accept, dogma. I challenged it.”

This penchant for pushing boundaries was nurtured in the lab of UCSF School of Medicine Professor Art Weiss, who emphasized the value of collaborative research. Irving came away from his rotation with a lasting impression of the progress that happens when colleagues are invested in each other’s success. Even better, he was a beneficiary of that supportive environment, which fostered his pioneering work with Weiss on single-chain chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology, which is now used to treat hematologic malignancies.

“It’s one of those instances where the basic research experiment can now translate into a new paradigm for clinical treatment,” says Irving.

Irving pivoted to cancer immunotherapy early in his career as a scientist in Genentech’s departments of oncology and immunology. Despite the skepticism, and even downright stigmatization, among many scientists about the immune system’s ability to recognize most cancers, Irving and his lab began working on the PD-L1 protein. In collaboration with many of his Genentech colleagues, Irving eventually developed the antibody that became the drug atezolizumab (Tecentriq), used to treat several types of cancers, including lung, breast, and bladder.

The introduction of this drug to patients and its subsequent effectiveness were defining moments for Irving. He remembers receiving a letter from the physician of the first patient who responded in the clinical trial -- a critically ill father of two young children who failed all prior treatment options. Within months of starting the new treatment, the patient was able to play with his kids and resume normal activities. He wanted to meet the people who developed the drug that saved his life.

 “To have such a positive impact even on one person’s life was more gratifying to me than any of my research papers,” says Irving.

In May 2018, Irving was appointed chief scientific officer of Five Prime Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that identifies and innovates new immune therapies. Overseeing a 50-member research group, Irving is responsible for their directional and technological strategies and represents their scientific developments to investors – work that he says fits his “MO of novelty as well as hoping to make a difference.”

“I like a good challenge,” notes Irving.  “But now what motivates me is … making a meaningful impact on patients' lives.”

Dr. Irving was awarded a 2019 Campaign Alumni Award in “The Innovators” category. The award recognizes those whose work has led to unexpected findings or outcomes that resulted in positive changes to the science or health-care communities.