Research interests

 ^InnovativeRadio-immunotherapy Research Center

Our primary research area is a combined radiotherapy and immunotherapy, with a particular focus on adoptive cell therapy. There is growing evidence which suggests that local RT promotes the number of tumor-specific CD8+T cells via dendritic cell activation or the migration and penetration of adoptive natural killer (NK) cells into primary tumor sites, making the TME more responsive to exogenous immunotherapeutic strategies. We have focused on 1) the modulation of the tumor microenvironment following radiation, 2) the tracking of administered immune cells, and 3) the mechanism through which allogeneic NK cells recognize and target solid tumors in an irradiated tumormicroenvironments. We are currently interested in the role of nano-sized extracellular vesicles extracted from NK cells and the synergistic efficacy of combination therapy with local tumor irradiation and allogeneic NK cells to target refractory and intractable stem-like solid tumors.