You may have heard the recent excitement in cancer therapy, then you have probably heard of CAR T Immunotherapy, but what exactly is it? If you are anything like us, then you are a bit confused by the concept, but have no fear, two cutting edge researchers from St Jude, Dr Stephen Gottschalk and Dr Giedre Krenciute are ready to explain it all to us in an easily digestible format.
My talk is meant to be in conjunction with a talk given by Dr. Krenciute. I will focus on giving a broad overview over the field of cell therapy, highlighting the rationale, accomplishments and challenges. She will then focus on one particular cell therapy approach.
I will talk and show how we engineer immune cells. Then I will tell the success story of blood cancer treatment using genetically engineered T cells followed by challenges for solid and brain tumors.
I am a pharmaceutical research scientist at St Jude Children's Research Hospital where I study drug transporters which play a major role in the effectiveness as well as toxicity of drugs in the human body. I love communicating and sharing different perspectives of science with others. Outside work, I love cooking adventures and trying out different cuisines!