Young Lab
Principal Investigator: Arabella Young
Institution: University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
PROJECT ABSTRACT Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized the treatment of melanoma, providing durable, curative responses to a proportion of patients with advanced and metastatic disease. Nonetheless, there remains several obstacles that impact the clinical utility of ICI treatment, with most significantly a lack of understanding of which patients are at risk for treatment resistance and/or immune-mediated side effects. Over half of all patients receiving ICIs display resistance, and biomarkers to predict benefit from ICI treatment remain limited. To combat therapeutic resistance, combination approaches that target multiple immunoregulatory markers have been clinically approved. While combinations improve treatment efficacy, they also precipitate an increase in the frequency of severe side effects, known as immune-related adverse events (irAEs). These irAEs can impact nearly every organ system and lead to significant morbidity, discontinuation of cancer-curing treatments, and even death. Therapies used to combat irAEs, such as corticosteroids and cytokine inhibitors, have been increasingly suggested to limit the efficacy of ICI treatment, highlighting the need for i…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R01CA302892-01A1: Generation of syngeneic, mutation-driven melanomas in an autoimmune-prone mouse to improve therapeutic efficacy without immunotoxicity (2026)
- 5R00CA246061-05: Developing strategies to inhibit cancer immunotherapy-induced immune-related adverse events without impeding anti-tumor immunity (2024)
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