Mustafa Khasraw

I lead a Tumor Immunobiology laboratory where we employ a wide range of wet and dry lab techniques to drive cancer research forward. Our primary goal is to uncover biologically significant insights and identify vulnerabilities that can be leveraged for therapeutic purposes.

Through close collaboration with our team, we facilitate the translation of fundamental scientific discoveries into biologically driven clinical trials, ensuring a seamless journey from laboratory bench to patient bedside and back.

I also play pivotal roles in various national and international initiatives related to biomarker research, immunotherapy, and genomics. Our recent work, highlighted in a Nature Medicine paper (PMID: 37488293), outlines our vision to transform the drug development paradigm in glioblastoma by emphasizing biologically driven biospecimen evaluation and serial on-treatment biopsies.

Laboratory Research Initiatives:

1. Investigate the divergence in tumor cell signatures following interactions with the immune-neuronal microenvironment.
2. Discern immunogenic glioma neoantigen-T cell receptor (TCR) pairs.
3. Investigate how brain tumors disrupt classical immune functions.
4. Analyze biospecimens collected from patients participating in clinical trials to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers.
5. Translate laboratory discoveries into the surgical window of opportunity and other investigator-initiated clinical trials.

Current Research Initiatives:

1. Develop biologically relevant in vitro and in vivo models of human tumors and their microenvironments, alongside dry lab technologies (bioinformatics), to address critical questions related to both tumor and immune intrinsic factors.
2. Integrate longitudinal human sample collection into multiple prospective protocols to investigate pharmacological, immune, and biological aspects.
3. Focus on the preclinical and clinical development of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) as a therapy for patients with central nervous system (CNS) cancers.
4. Design and test novel methods for the safe direct delivery of immunotherapies into brain tumors.