The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) recently announced the appointment of Frederic Pla, PhD, as its Chief Operating Officer (COO). Dr. Pla will lead day-to-day operations and work with the Institute’s leadership team to establish goals for performance, expansion, and sustainable growth of the organization. He will have a sharp focus on business development to expand PICI’s external partnerships, and will oversee business operations, legal, strategic alliances and communications areas.
Frederic Pla, PhD
“I feel humbled and incredibly fortunate for the opportunity to become a part of PICI’s vision, boldness, and expertise as we take the institute to the next stage and continue to improve cancer care for all patients,” said Dr. Pla.
Dr. Pla will work to support PICI’s goal to bring immunotherapy treatments from bench to bedside to market to benefit patients with cancer around the world.
Dr. Pla most recently served as COO at Genomic Health. His previous experience also includes leadership roles at Life Technologies, GE Healthcare, and NASA. He holds an engineering degree from the Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, an MS degree in Sound and Vibration Studies from University of Southampton and a PhD degree in Acoustics from Penn State University.
About PICI
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy was founded in 2016 through a $250 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker. The San Francisco-based nonprofit is an unprecedented collaboration between leading immunotherapy researchers and cancer centers, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The institute also supports top researchers at other institutions, including City of Hope, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Institute for Systems Biology, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
