Ascending Star Award Lecture

Investigating the T cell-inflamed Tumor Microenvironment to Enhance Cancer Immunotherapy

Jason J. Luke, MD, associate professor of medicine (Division of Hematology/Oncology), School of Medicine, will present the next lecture from the group of 2023 Ascending Star Award winners. The award, created in 2022 by Anantha Shekhar, MD, PhD, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean, School of Medicine, recognizes highly productive, creative mid-career faculty members in the health sciences.

With a research emphasis on cancer immunotherapy, Luke’s lecture will focus on his research translating novel discoveries from human biospecimens into clinical trials for patients. Cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized oncology over the past decade with its potential to cure cancer for patients with and without metastatic disease; however, many patients do not benefit. Treatment response to immunotherapy is strongly associated with the T cell-inflamed tumor microenvironment (TME), characterized by CD8+ T cells, antigen presentation and type I/II interferon gene expression. Tumor mutational burden also dictates response with some oncogenic pathways, such as WNT/β-catenin, causally linked to the non-T cell-inflamed TME. Luke’s lab uses multi-omic technologies to identify mechanisms allowing tumors to evade the immune system and harnesses the T cell-inflamed TME as a working model to identify tumor-cell and immune cell molecular correlates linked to cancer treatment outcomes. Using this model, Luke and colleagues identified a range of potential therapeutic immunotherapy targets, which they are pursuing in immunotherapy clinical trials. Through this work, he and his team strive to improve outcomes for patients with cancer by enhancing standard therapies, such as radiation and immune-checkpoint blockade.

A reception with light refreshments will follow the lecture.