H. Kay Chung, PhD

CAR-T therapy is a cancer treatment that uses a patient’s own immune cells, called T cells, to find and kill cancer. It has transformed treatment for some blood cancers, but it has not worked nearly as well for solid tumors such as pancreatic cancer. One major reason is that solid tumors create a hostile environment that can weaken T cells and stop them from fighting.Our goal is to make CAR-T cells smarter, stronger, and safer. Pancreatic tumors release signals that normally help them hide from the immune system. We want to turn one of those signals into an alarm. We will engineer T cells so that when they sense this cancer-associated signal, they switch on their strongest cancer-fighting abilities. In other words, the tumor itself would tell the T cells, “Cancer is here—start fighting.” This approach could help T cells survive longer, attack pancreatic tumors more effectively, and remain less active in healthy tissues. That could make treatment both more powerful and safer for patients.If successful, this research could open a new path toward effective CAR-T therapies for pancreatic cancer and, in the future, other solid tumors that are currently very difficult to treat.