Clinicn Investigator, Asst Prf MGBCI Faculty Solid Tumor MGPO, Mass General Research Institute

Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School

Associate Physician Medicine-Hematology and Medical Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital

MD 2012

antibodies bispecific; antibody-drug conjugates; car t-cells; chimeric antigen receptor; endometrial cancer; ovarian cancer; vulvar cancer Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells have not been successful in the management of solid tumor malignancies. Reasons for this include; poor trafficking, the presence of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, CAR T-cell dysfunction and immune escape via antigen-loss. We are developing strategies to further modify CAR T cells to optimize their efficacy for ovarian cancer and gynecologic malignancies. Our approaches to further engineering these CAR T cells are informed by the ovarian cancer tumor microenvironment. Using syngeneic immune competent mouse models and subsequent validation in genetically engineered and xenograft models, we are able to effectively evaluate these rationally optimized CAR T cells as monotherapy or in combination with other immunomodulatory agents prior to initiation of clinical trials.