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BMB PhD Program Faculty

Kellie N. Smith

Unlocking the power of tumor-specific T cells

Associate Professor

Department of Oncology
School of Medicine

Kellie Smith

Research Overview

Dr. Smith’s lab focuses on defining the functional programming of tumor-specific T cells as it relates to immunotherapy response. While much of her work is in the setting of early stage/resectable lung cancer, she also leads or participates in projects focused on other cancer types, including head and neck cancers, sinonasal carcinoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, mesothelioma, and esophageal cancer. Her lab collaborates with many clinicians within Johns Hopkins and at outside institutions on immunotherapy clinical trials aimed at improving treatment options, preventing disease recurrence, and understanding the predictors of response to treatment in both early and advanced-stage disease.

Dr. Smith’s early work used a novel approach developed by her lab, called MANAFEST (mutation associated neoantigen functional expansion of specific T-cells) to detect and monitor responses to mutation associated neoantigens, endogenous retroviruses, tumor associated antigens, and viral antigens. More recently, she has used this platform coupled with high dimensional -omics approaches to study the transcriptional programming of tumor-reactive T cells in cancer patients treated with checkpoint blockade. Ongoing work is focused on using innovative murine models to better understand the mechanistic underpinnings of her discoveries in human biospecimens. This work has already led to the identification of new therapeutic targets and mechanisms that are being explored in clinical trial designs. 

 

 

Topic Areas

Selected Publications