John Morrison

John Morrison has pioneered glycoengineering of therapeutic antibodies to enhance their anti-cancer activity, demonstrating that removal of core fucose from antibody Fc glycans dramatically increases binding to FcgammaRIIIa on NK cells and macrophages, resulting in enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity against tumor cells. His work led to the development of obinutuzumab (Gazyva), the first glycoengineered antibody approved for cancer, which showed superior efficacy over rituximab in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He has developed GlycoMab technology for producing homogeneous afucosylated antibodies at manufacturing scale. His glycoengineering approach has become a standard platform for next-generation cancer antibody therapeutics.