Ramin Salehi-Rad, MD, PhD Awarded Career Development Award from VA

Dr. Ramin Salehi-Rad was awarded the Career Development Award from the Department of Veteran Affairs. His research entitled Flt3l gene-modified cDC1 in situ vaccination in NSCLC: mechanisms and therapeutic application seeks to understand ways to improve the outcomes of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), by exploring a novel approach that will immunize lung cancers with engineered cells that will boost the tumor killing immune response. According to Dr. Salehi-Rad:

"Despite recent advents of immunotherapy, many patients with NSCLC do not respond to therapy or relapse following an initial response; therefore, there is a critical need for the development of synergistic approaches that augment the efficacy of immunotherapy. One approach to improve responses to immunotherapy is to utilize in situ vaccination (ISV) with rationally engineered cytokine-secreting antigen presenting cells to generate broad tumor-specific T cell responses. This proposal seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms of ISV with cytokine-secreting elite antigen cross-presenting conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1) in murine NSCLC to facilitate the development of novel DC-based immunotherapy for patients with lung cancer."

Dr. Salehi-Rad is an assistant clinical professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine. 


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