Harvard Catalyst Profiles

As a translational physician-scientist my long-term goals are to translate novel aspects of immunology to improve treatments for patients with advanced malignancies. The primary research focus of my lab is gene manipulation of the human NK cells aimed at enhancing anti-tumor function and modulating tumor micro-environment. We are also working on developing novel ways to deliver potent cytokines to the tumor microenvironment and investigating ways to further enhance activity and targeting capabilities of memory-like NK cells.

We described human memory-like NK cells with enhanced anti-tumor activity and in a first in human clinical trial demonstrated safety and promising activity of these cells in relapsed / refractory AML patients. In clinic we are currently testing these memory-like NK cells in combination with novel immunemodulatory agents in patients with advanced malignancies.

I also lead our haploidentical transplant program at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and we are working to potentially use haploidentical donor transplantation as a platform to incorporate NK cell-based immunotherapy approaches for patients with high risk hematologic malignancies undergoing transplantation.