Shivani Srivastava, Ph.D.

Our lab is developing treatments for human cancers by engineering immune cells to express “chimeric antigen receptors” (CAR-T cells) that enable them to recognize and kill tumor cells. Although CAR-T cells can eliminate tumors in blood cancers, they have not been effective in solid tumors like lung cancer, which can drive T cells into an “exhausted” state. CAR-T cells can be engineered to resist exhaustion but whether these strategies will be effective in human cancer is not known. We developed a mouse model of lung cancer that mimics human tumor initiation, progression, and patient response to CAR-T cell therapy. We will use this model to define how dysfunction develops in CAR-T cells and whether engineering CAR-T cells to resist exhaustion can preserve their function long-term. We aim to translate our findings into novel strategies for enhancing the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy for human lung cancer.