My research career has been focusing on the understanding of the factors driving immunogenicity in cancer with a focus on gastrointestinal cancers. Since I joined the GI oncology service and Dr Luis Diaz’ lab in MSKCC, as a physician-scientist trained in both immunology and genomics, I developed my translational and clinical research around the theme of immunogenomics with three main objectives :
1) Identify the determinants of sensitivity and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade in patients with DNA repair impaired cancers, including Mismatch Repair and Polymerase epsilon proofreading deficient tumors ;
2) Target novel mutation-derived potent neoantigens with mRNA vaccine strategies to enhance the immunorejection of cancers harboring specific mutations ;
3) Make poorly immunogenic tumors produce de novo neoantigens, exploring how mutagenic agents and DNA repair inhibitors help to convert immunoresistant tumors into an immune state sensitive to checkpoint blockade inhibition.