Email: [email protected]

Program: Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology Graduate Student
Year Entered: 2021
Thesis Advisor: Ingunn Stromnes (lab website)

Research: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is an aggressive cancer that has proven difficult to treat with immune checkpoint blockade therapy which fails to fully reinvigorate T cells at the tumor site. There is increasing evidence that chronic antigen gives rise to highly proliferative memory T cell subsets housed in peripheral lymphoid tissues, which may serve as a fresh source of effector T cells upon successful checkpoint blockade. My research is focused on understanding this memory-to-effector T cell differentiation in PDA, with the hope of identifying molecular signals that may be exploited to overcome T cell exhaustion and improve therapies. To this end, I am also hoping to identify an MHC class II restricted neoepitope in our PDA animal model to improve our understanding of T cell dynamics.

Degrees received: 
BS, University of California - Irvine, 2018