Max Wattenberg
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Cancer immunotherapy can sometimes give long-lasting control of tumors, because the immune system forms a 'memory' that keeps the cancer in check. Yet such durable responses are rare in patients.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
cancer immunotherapy
immunological memory
CD4+ T cells
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Determine how different subtypes of conventional dendritic cells, immune cells that present tumor pieces to T cells, shape tumor-specific CD4+ T cell memory. The work uses clinically relevant mouse models of pancreatic cancer.
- Determine how CD4+ helper T cells coordinate anti-tumor immune memory, given preliminary evidence that memory in these models depends on CD4+ rather than CD8+ T cells.
- Define how cancer-associated inflammatory proteins such as IL-6 drive dendritic cell fate and dysfunction. Relate these changes to poor outcomes of CD40 agonist immunotherapy in patients with pancreatic cancer.
More about the research
This project asks how anti-tumor immune memory starts and how cancer disrupts it. It is a career-development award with training in mouse modeling, transcriptomics (measuring which genes are switched on) and clinical trials.
Why it matters
Patients with pancreatic cancer and other cancers rarely see lasting benefit from immunotherapy. Learning how dendritic cells and CD4+ T cells build anti-tumor memory, and how inflammatory proteins such as IL-6 undermine it, could point to new immunotherapy strategies. It could also explain why some patients respond poorly to dendritic cell–targeted treatments like CD40 agonists.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eric Lau
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how oral L-fucose changes signaling in CD4+ T cells, helper immune cells, so that more of them become central memory cells inside melanomas, using single-cell RNA sequencing.
Hussein Sultan
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how the EBI3 subunit of the suppressive cytokine IL-35 drives induction of Tr1 regulatory CD4 T cells, using IL-35 reporter mice in established tumor models to identify which cells produce it.
Wantong Yao
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Define the molecular pathways through which a newly identified stress-response regulator helps pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells survive nutrient shortage, low oxygen and oxidative stress, and evade the immune system.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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