Vivasvan Vykunta

I study how immune cells interact with each other to lead to productive immune responses. I focus on these interactions in the tumors to better understand why therapies may not work in all patients and hopefully uncover new strategies to therapeutically modulate the immune response against cancer.

Immune cells in the tumor are critical players for eliminating tumors. Yet, the heterogeneity of tumors between patients, and even variation within the same tumor, makes it difficult to treat all patients with available immunotherapies. One of the factors that has emerged as indicative of patient outcomes is the presence of various myeloid cell types, specifically tumor associated macrophages. Past work has found that tumor associated macrophages can limit T cell responses significantly in the tumor. Our group recently showed than exhausted, dysfunctional T cells and suppressive tumor associated macrophages create a disruptive feedback loop that limits tumor rejection. My project focuses on understanding why tumor associated macrophages interacting with T cells limit T cell activation while related myeloid cell types lead to potent T cell stimulation and tumor rejection. Ultimately, a deeper understanding of T cell activation programs in relation to their interactions with macrophages will uncover new therapeutic pathways to target in patients and promote anti-tumor immunity.