Akshay Tate
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Mentor(s): Michael Green
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Radiation Oncology / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 2 – 11am – 11:50am
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Akshay Tate, Jadyn James, Ashley Pearson, Erin Holcomb, Monica Bonilla , Zhuwen Wang, Amanda Huber, Long Jiang, Michael Green
Presenter: 91
Abstract
Immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the individual’s immune system, has emerged as a potentially promising treatment for many forms of cancers. Unfortunately, immunotherapy is only effective in a minority of patients. CD8+ T cells are required for immunotherapy efficacy but are frequently dysfunctional in the tumor microenvironment. The goal of this experiment was to determine genetic drivers of T cell function and dysfunction. We hypothesized that Crispr-Cas9 sequencing may provide insights into T cell function. To examine this hypothesis, CD8+ T cells were isolated from mice and activated into functional and exhausted states. T cells were infected with a genome wide clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) library. Next Generation Sequencing was performed on baseline, functional, and exhausted T cells. Statistical analysis comparing guide sequence enrichment and dropout with statistical significance was performed. This data suggest CRISPR screening may enable the identification of genes potentially responsible for controlling fate and exhaustion. Additional study is needed to confirm critical drivers of T cell fate and function.
Biomedical Sciences
