My current research focus is in the area of molecular and cellular tumor immunology, particularly the development of gene-engineered T cells, tailored to treat cancer:

(1) engineering of T cells with tumor-specific synthetic TCRs or chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) for adoptive immunotherapy (ACT)

(2) manipulate co-stimulatory pathways to improve expansion of tumor-resident tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) enriched for tumor specificity

(3) genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9 to target cell-intrinsic pathways that restrict T-cell effector functions and their anti-tumor potential

(4) Development of isolation and expansion methods for TIL therapy and to produce large-scale GMP-grade TIL products for ACT clinical trials of melanoma and other solid tumors