"I am thrilled to be a recipient of The Sontag Foundation’s Distinguished Scientist Award, which will allow us to expand our findings to brain cancers that so far have been very difficult to treat with immunotherapeutics due to unique challenges. Our findings can help overcome some of these obstacles in the brain and create novel brain cancer-tailored immunotherapeutic agents."

About DSA-Funded Research

"Dr. Staedtke's Lab is interested in the identification and understanding of mechanisms contributing to immune-mediated toxicity and anti-tumor response following immunotherapy. They recently identified that catecholamines that are produced by stress-exposed immune cells drive CART-induced immunotoxicities, and that blocking catecholamine production reduced Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) and also enhanced tumor killing. They propose to use these findings to help overcome some of the existing challenges in brain cancer immunotherapy by exploring the role of catecholamines in immunotoxicity and on CART anti-tumor actions in the brain. If successful, these results will advance the mechanistic understanding, reduce immunotoxicity, and ultimately create novel brain-specific immunotherapeutic agents that will improve patient outcomes."