Robert Johnston

I lead a translational research program focused on lung cancer and the tumor microenvironment, where my group integrates patient-derived data, clinical trial samples, and experimental biology to better understand disease biology, therapeutic resistance, and identify new opportunities. We work closely with development, research, omics, pathology, and computational partners across Genentech.

I trained in fundamental T cell biology during my Ph.D. at UC San Diego and the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech focused on immune checkpoints such as TIGIT. Having been a Genentech postdoctoral fellow myself, I see this program as a uniquely strong and intellectually rich training environment, offering an unusual combination of scientific rigor, access to patient-derived biology, and proximity to clinical development. After completing my training, I led a research team at Bristol Myers Squibb focusing on the TME and targets such as VISTA, before returning to Genentech to pursue translational science.

Postdoctoral Mentor

Postdoctoral fellows in my group lead integrated, hypothesis-driven projects and engage directly with development scientists, experimental biologists, pathologists, and data scientists across Genentech. As a mentor, my goal is to help postdoctoral scientists develop deep mechanistic and disease expertise, gain experience working across discovery and development teams, and build the skills needed for independent scientific leadership in academia, biotechnology, or industry. Postdoctoral fellows in my group have opportunities to publish high-impact work, collaborate broadly, and gain firsthand experience in how patient-centered translational research shapes drug development.

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