Suyoun Choi
Program: Cancer Biology
Current advisor: Carl DeSelm, MD, PhD
Undergraduate university: Stanford University
Research summary
CAR cell therapies have the potential to treat both solid and blood cancers due to their ability to target neoantigens. However, the cytotoxic activity of CAR T cells are limited to cancer cells expressing the target neoantigens. This makes CAR T cell therapy susceptible to antigen escape, especially for cancers that are heterogenous or have high mutation rates. CAR dendritic cells can address this problem because they not only present the CAR-targeted neoantigen but also other engulfed neoantigens to T cells, activating a diverse T cell response against the cancer cells. Recently, the DeSelm lab has shown that CAR dendritic cells can mount an effect immune response against a sarcoma model in mice. The goal of my research is to characterize the phenotypes of CD8+ T cells activated by CAR dendritic cells, and analyze how these phenotypes differ from CD8+ T cells activated by wild type dendritic cells. By understanding the mechanism of how CAR dendritic cells activate a superior CD8+ T cell immune response, I aim to enhance this mechanism further to improve the CAR dendritic cell therapy. Moving forward, I plan to also study the interactions between cancer cells and CAR dendritic cells to develop a method to optimize the CAR dendritic cell therapy for specific solid and blood cancers.
Graduate publications