Dan Kaufman
University of California-San Diego, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Some of the most effective new cancer treatments work by re-arming a patient's own immune cells to recognize and kill tumors. Today this is usually done by removing cells from a patient, modifying them in a factory, and infusing them back, which is slow and expensive.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
chimeric antigen receptor
virus-like particle
mRNA delivery
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Test whether virus-like particles carrying DARPin or scFv targeting proteins deliver mRNA selectively to T cells, NK cells or macrophages, first in cell lines and then in primary human immune cells.
- Determine whether cells engineered this way to express an anti-mesothelin CAR, a receptor that recognizes a tumor surface marker, kill ovarian cancer cells in culture.
- Profile the gene expression and metabolism of particle-engineered T cells, NK cells and macrophages to understand how the delivered receptor changes their state.
- Evaluate specificity, safety, persistence and anti-tumor activity of in-body immune cell engineering in tumor-bearing immune-competent mice and in immunodeficient mice engrafted with human immune cells.
More about the research
This project asks whether immune cells can instead be reprogrammed directly inside the body, and whether several different immune cell types can each be turned into tumor killers.
Why it matters
CAR-T therapy has transformed treatment of some blood cancers but must be made individually for each patient, is costly, and works poorly against solid tumors. Engineering immune cells directly inside the body could make such therapy faster, standardized and available to more patients, and targeting NK cells and macrophages as well as T cells may extend the benefit to solid cancers such as ovarian cancer.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sidi Chen
Yale University, CT·Biomedical Engineering
Advance and validate MAJESTIC, a gene delivery system combining mRNA, AAV vectors and the Sleeping Beauty transposon, testing efficient and stable cargo delivery with minimal toxicity across diverse immune cell types.
Peter Chockley
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Develop monomeric chimeric antigen receptors (single-unit CARs with a stable off state) for natural killer cells, adding immune synapse augmentation, to reduce erratic signaling and improve killing of pediatric solid tumor cells.
Jeffrey Miller
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
Engineer iPSC-derived NK (iNK) cells with gene edits that improve homing and migration into tumors, tolerance of low oxygen (hypoxia), and survival after transfer into patients with solid tumors.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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