Mekhail Anwar
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Two hard problems in cancer care come down to seeing what is happening inside a tumor, early and precisely. First, immunotherapy drugs help some patients but fail for most, and doctors lack noninvasive ways to tell quickly who is not responding and why.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
cancer immunotherapy
immune checkpoint inhibitors
immunotherapy resistance
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2029
What they work on
- Develop and test PET imaging of granzyme B, a molecule released by active killer T cells, and of tumor neutrophil levels to detect early response or resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors in mouse tumor models.
- Test implantable fluorescence sensors that continuously report response and resistance markers in living mice, paired with multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI) that maps up to 50 proteins in tissue sections.
- Determine whether early imaging readouts after immunotherapy allow rapid treatment changes, such as blocking the IL-1a–G-CSF–CXCL1 neutrophil circuit, across tumor models with different resistance mechanisms.
- Redesign upconverting nanoparticles as light-emitting probes that can be safely imaged in tissue, and use engineered antibodies to target them to tumor cells.
- Build an ultrathin imaging chip integrated into surgical instruments to detect residual cancer cells during surgery, both at the tissue surface and at depth.
More about the research
Second, surgeons often leave behind microscopic cancer cells they cannot see, which raises the chance the cancer returns. The lab develops imaging tools, from body scans and tissue maps to tiny sensors and imaging chips, to address both problems.
Why it matters
Most patients on cancer immunotherapy do not respond. Imaging that spots resistance early could let doctors switch quickly to combination treatments, and let responders stay on therapy while avoiding chemotherapy or radiation. Separately, imaging tools built into surgical instruments could help surgeons remove all cancer cells. This could lower recurrence in breast, prostate and other cancers, where 20–40% of patients have positive margins.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anna Sorace
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Biomedical Engineering
Quantify HER2 levels and blood-vessel function in brain metastases from HER2+ breast cancer patients, using [89Zr]trastuzumab-PET and DCE-MRI, to measure how much trastuzumab reaches each lesion.
Drew Pardoll
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify molecules made by regulatory T cells (Tregs), immune cells that suppress other immune cells, that are found specifically in tumors of patients who do not respond to anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 therapy.
James Peter Basilion
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether AKRO-6qc, a probe activated by cysteine proteases, can guide tumor removal and then photothermal therapy to extend survival and prevent recurrence and metastasis in BALB/c mice with 4T1/luc breast tumors.
The school
University of California-San Francisco: 89 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 164 research doctorates a year.
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