Xiao-Jing Wang
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Radiation therapy is a common treatment when head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), a cancer of the lining of the mouth and throat, comes back after earlier treatment. Many of these tumors resist radiation.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
Pharmacology
- Topics
head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
oral cancer
radiation therapy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Test whether blocking TGFβ and PD-L1 together strengthens the radiation-triggered "in situ vaccine" effect and immune activation across the body, using mouse oral cancer cells transplanted into the mouth of immune-competent mice.
- Determine how different radiation regimens combined with TGFβ/PD-L1 blockade kill tumor cells and affect myeloid immune cells, including benefits that do not depend on T cells, in mouse models and patient-derived xenografts.
- Run a Phase Ib clinical trial of radiation plus M7824, a single drug that blocks both TGFβ and PD-L1, in patients with locally recurrent or oligometastatic HNSCC (cancer spread to only a few sites).
- Identify cellular and molecular markers in patient specimens that predict response to radiation plus M7824, to guide a later biomarker-selected Phase II trial.
More about the research
Immune drugs that block PD-1, a brake on T cells, are approved for these patients, but few respond. Radiation can help the immune system: it kills tumor cells, which release new tumor proteins (neoantigens) that act like an "in situ vaccine". It also switches on STING, a sensor that sounds an immune alarm. But radiation also raises two immune suppressors: TGFβ1, a signaling protein that dampens immunity, and PD-L1, the partner molecule that engages PD-1. This project asks whether blocking both at once can make radiation work better.
Why it matters
Patients whose head and neck cancer returns locally or spreads to a few sites have a poor outlook, and there is no standard drug to give alongside radiation. Combining radiation with M7824 could strengthen immunotherapy and reduce radiation resistance in these patients. Markers that predict response could allow a later Phase II trial that enrolls only the patients most likely to benefit.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Theresa Guo
University of California-San Diego, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Predict and rank splice-variant-derived peptides, short protein fragments made only by tumors with abnormal RNA splicing, from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma using an established computational pipeline.
Sana D Karam
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-L1 drugs act on PD-1-expressing regulatory T cells and their STAT3 signaling during radiation therapy, using genetically engineered mice and samples from HNSCC clinical trials.
Jin Xie
University of Georgia, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether anti-CD205 antibody-conjugated calcium nanoparticles (αCaNPs) selectively raise cytosolic calcium in circulating cDC1 dendritic cells and increase their infiltration into tumors in murine head and neck cancer models.
The school
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus: 41 labs on PI Pages, $766M a year on research, 205 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus
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