Hacking Immune Cells To Expand Their Therapeutic Potential

We are excited to announce that our unique approach to improving T cell function has been published by Nature! Our strategy fights tumors by taking advantage of the natural selection of cancer itself. By testing a library of naturally occurring T cell mutations, we identified a gene fusion of CARD11–PIK3R3 that when paired with CAR T cells greatly improves their accumulation and antitumor efficacy. Years in the making, this project was a collaboration with the Choi Lab at Northwestern. It was driven by Roybal Lab members Julie Garcia, Jay Daniels, Iowis Zhu, Casey Burnett and many others. There is much more to this story! For an overview check out this article, for the full publication click here.

We begin the new year by welcoming a new postdoc to the Roybal Lab. Xun Li, Ph.D., joins us from Humboldt University in Berlin, specifically the Laboratory of Klaus Rajewsky in the Max Delbrück Center. His previous work focused on developing efficient CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene repair in primary immune cells to treat primary immunodeficiency. He plans to pair his expertise in CRISPR/Cas9 technology with synthetic biology to develop new immunotherapies.

This winter we’ve seen big changes in membership.  Casey Burnett Ph.D., one of the lab’s founding members, graduated and moved to Seattle, where she will continue her research in an industry setting. Casey played an integral role in the Fusion project and in many ways shaped the culture and direction of the lab. In the early days of the pandemic, while most of us were just trying to avoid getting sick, Casey spent her time profiling immune cells of patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Her work was later published in Immunity. Truly an impressive paper made even more so by the conditions under which the data was collected. All around Casey was a remarkable Ph.D. student, she will be missed!

We are excited to announce that four members of the Roybal lab, Max Foisey, Casey Burnett, Joe Muldoon, and Majo Duran were awarded Symbiont Seed Grants. This new funding source offered by the Gladstone Institute, is meant to encourage innovative collaborations between labs on cancer relevant projects. In this case our researchers will be working with members of the Eyquem, Spitzer, Carnuvale, and Kamber lab.

We are excited to announce that four members of the Roybal lab, Max Foisey, Casey Burnett, Joe Muldoon, and Majo Duran were awarded Symbiont Seed Grants.  This new funding source offered by the Gladstone Institute is meant to encourage innovative collaborations between labs on cancer relevant projects.  In this case our researchers will be working with members of the Eyquem, Spitzer, Carnuvale, and Kamber lab.

After six years of service as a member researcher at The Parker Center for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), Dr. Kole Roybal, has been appointed to the role of Center Director for PICI at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Roybal succeeds founding Center Director, Dr. Lewis Lanier, PhD, following his retirement, and will join Dr. Lawrence Fong, MD, Center Co-Director in the continued leadership and direction of the PICI at UCSF site.  Congratulations Kole!