Scholars@Duke
Erika J Crosby

Erika J Crosby

Assistant Professor in Surgery
Surgery, Surgical Sciences
erika.crosby@duke.edu
203 Research Drive, MSRB1 Box 2606, Durham, NC 27710
MSRB1 Room 288, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Vaccines targeting <i>ESR1</i> activating mutations elicit anti-tumor immune responses and suppress estrogen signaling in therapy resistant ER+ breast cancer.

Journal Article Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · December 2024 ER+ breast cancers (BC) are characterized by the elevated expression and signaling of estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1), which renders them sensitive to anti-endocrine therapy. While these therapies are clinically effective, prolonged treatment inevita ... Full text Cite

Abstract B052: Single-cell and spatial analysis of the immune landscape unveils a subset of potentially tumor-reactive T cells in patients with localized PDAC

Conference Cancer Research · September 15, 2024 AbstractEven in its localized stages, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is virtually incurable, characterized by early dissemination and disease recurrence. The liver is the most common site of metasta ... Full text Cite

Abstract C004: A window-of-opportunity trial using neoadjuvant hepatic artery chemotherapy for patients with localized pancreas cancer: Interim analysis of safety and feasibility

Conference Cancer Research · September 15, 2024 AbstractLess than 20% of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will present with localized disease and receive both resection and systemic therapy. Within this group of patients, actual 10-year survival ... Full text Cite

Abstract 2458: Targeting the CXCR3 axis in HER2+ breast cancer to enhance anti-tumor immunity

Conference Cancer Research · March 22, 2024 AbstractBreast cancer (BC) is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women worldwide with more than 2 million new cases in 2020. The efficacy of immunotherapies for BC is limited, with response rates of &am ... Full text Cite

Abstract B022: A platform to characterize hepatic immunity reveals variation in hepatic infiltration of tumor expanded T cells in “localized” PDAC

Conference Cancer Research · January 16, 2024 AbstractEven in its earliest stages, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an essentially incurable disease due to the presence of disseminated, yet radiographically occult cancer cells in the setting o ... Full text Cite

Beyond Neoantigens: Antigens Derived from Tumor Drivers as Cancer Vaccine Targets.

Journal Article Clin Cancer Res · September 1, 2023 A vaccine targeting HER2, a nonmutated but overexpressed tumor antigen, readily primed T cells for ex vivo expansion and adoptive transfer with minimal toxicity. This regimen led to intramolecular epitope spreading in a majority of patients and offers a tr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cancer vaccine strategies using self-replicating RNA viral platforms.

Journal Article Cancer Gene Ther · June 2023 The development and success of RNA-based vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 has awakened new interest in utilizing RNA vaccines against cancer, particularly in the emerging use of self-replicating RNA (srRNA) viral vaccine platforms. These vaccines are based on ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical trials of self-replicating RNA-based cancer vaccines.

Journal Article Cancer Gene Ther · June 2023 Therapeutic cancer vaccines, designed to activate immune effectors against tumor antigens, utilize a number of different platforms for antigen delivery. Among these are messenger RNAs (mRNA), successfully deployed in some prophylactic SARS-CoV2 vaccines. T ... Full text Link to item Cite

Key takeaways for knowledge expansion of early-career scientists conducting Transdisciplinary Research in Energetics and Cancer (TREC): a report from the TREC Training Workshop 2022.

Journal Article J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr · May 4, 2023 The overall goal of the annual Transdisciplinary Research in Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Training Workshop is to provide transdisciplinary training for scientists in energetics and cancer and clinical care. The 2022 Workshop included 27 early-to-mid caree ... Full text Link to item Cite

Movie 1 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 labelled sidebuds. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p><p></p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 3 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 invasive carcinoma. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 4 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 microinvasive carcinoma. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 5 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>d16HER2 mammary intraepithelial neoplasm. d16HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 2 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>d16HER2 labelled sidebuds. d16HER2 shown in yellow. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 4 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 microinvasive carcinoma. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Supplementary Tables 1-5 for scRNAseq marker genes from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>Supplementary Table 1: Cluster-specific markers from all cells (8,486 cells) Supplementary Table 2: Cluster-specific markers from all epithelial cells (3,843 cells) Supplementary Table 3: Cluster-specific markers from all immune cells (1,8 ... Full text Cite

Movie 5 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>d16HER2 mammary intraepithelial neoplasm. d16HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Movie 1 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 labelled sidebuds. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p><p></p> ... Full text Cite

Data from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <div>Abstract<p>HER2-positive breast cancers are among the most heterogeneous breast cancer subtypes. The early amplification of HER2 and its known oncogenic isoforms provide a plausible mechanism in which distinct programs of tumor het ... Full text Cite

Movie 3 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>p95HER2 invasive carcinoma. p95HER2 shown in magenta. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Supplementary Tables 1-5 for scRNAseq marker genes from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>Supplementary Table 1: Cluster-specific markers from all cells (8,486 cells) Supplementary Table 2: Cluster-specific markers from all epithelial cells (3,843 cells) Supplementary Table 3: Cluster-specific markers from all immune cells (1,8 ... Full text Cite

Movie 2 from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <p>d16HER2 labelled sidebuds. d16HER2 shown in yellow. Krt14 antibody staining shown in green.</p> ... Full text Cite

Data from HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase

Other · April 3, 2023 <div>Abstract<p>HER2-positive breast cancers are among the most heterogeneous breast cancer subtypes. The early amplification of HER2 and its known oncogenic isoforms provide a plausible mechanism in which distinct programs of tumor het ... Full text Cite

Figure S4 from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <p>Individual histograms of perforin expression by memory CD8 T cell cluster pre- and post-vaccination</p> ... Full text Cite

Table S2 from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <p>Concurrent HER2 therapies for each patient for whom CYTOF analysis was done</p> ... Full text Cite

Data from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <div>AbstractPurpose:<p>Immune-based therapy for metastatic breast cancer has had limited success, particularly in molecular subtypes with low somatic mutations rates. Strategies to augment T-cell infiltration of tumors include vaccines ... Full text Cite

Figure S4 from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <p>Individual histograms of perforin expression by memory CD8 T cell cluster pre- and post-vaccination</p> ... Full text Cite

Data from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <div>AbstractPurpose:<p>Immune-based therapy for metastatic breast cancer has had limited success, particularly in molecular subtypes with low somatic mutations rates. Strategies to augment T-cell infiltration of tumors include vaccines ... Full text Cite

Table S2 from Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8<sup>+</sup> T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study

Other · March 31, 2023 <p>Concurrent HER2 therapies for each patient for whom CYTOF analysis was done</p> ... Full text Cite

Ultrasound Enhanced Perfusion and Drug Penetration for Intratumoral Immunotherapy Using a Needle Ultrasound Transducer - a Phantom Study

Conference IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS · January 1, 2023 Intratumoral immunotherapy is a promising cancer treatment approach that can initiate durable anti-tumor responses and avoid potential off-target toxicities. However, direct intratumoral injection remains challenging owing to elevated solid stress and inte ... Full text Cite

Trastuzumab/pertuzumab combination therapy stimulates antitumor responses through complement-dependent cytotoxicity and phagocytosis.

Journal Article JCI Insight · March 22, 2022 Two HER2-specific mAbs, trastuzumab and pertuzumab (T+P), combined with chemotherapy comprise standard-of-care treatment for advanced HER2+ breast cancers (BC). While this antibody combination is highly effective, its synergistic mechanism-of-action (MOA) ... Full text Link to item Cite

HSP90-Specific nIR Probe Identifies Aggressive Prostate Cancers: Translation from Preclinical Models to a Human Phase I Study.

Journal Article Mol Cancer Ther · January 2022 A noninvasive test to discriminate indolent prostate cancers from lethal ones would focus treatment where necessary while reducing overtreatment. We exploited the known activity of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) as a chaperone critical for the function of n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Combination of ultrasound-based mechanical disruption of tumor with immune checkpoint blockade modifies tumor microenvironment and augments systemic antitumor immunity.

Journal Article J Immunother Cancer · January 2022 BACKGROUND: Despite multimodal adjuvant management with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormonal therapies, most surgically resected primary breast cancers relapse or metastasize. A potential solution to late and distant recurrence is to augment systemic an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Intracorporeal Sonoporation-Induced Drug/Gene Delivery Using a Catheter Ultrasound Transducer

Conference IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS · January 1, 2022 Ultrasound (US) has been recently demonstrated promising in cancer immunotherapy. By virtue of microbubble-mediated cavitation, US can induce temporary pores in the cell membrane to enhance drug/gene delivery and this process is termed sonoporation. Curren ... Full text Cite

Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Immunometabolism in 2021

Journal Article Immunometabolism (United States) · January 1, 2022 Full text Cite

HER2 Isoforms Uniquely Program Intratumor Heterogeneity and Predetermine Breast Cancer Trajectories During the Occult Tumorigenic Phase.

Journal Article Mol Cancer Res · October 2021 HER2-positive breast cancers are among the most heterogeneous breast cancer subtypes. The early amplification of HER2 and its known oncogenic isoforms provide a plausible mechanism in which distinct programs of tumor heterogeneity could be traced to the in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Intratumoral Plasmid IL12 Expands CD8+ T Cells and Induces a CXCR3 Gene Signature in Triple-negative Breast Tumors that Sensitizes Patients to Anti-PD-1 Therapy.

Journal Article Clin Cancer Res · May 1, 2021 PURPOSE: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive disease with limited therapeutic options. Antibodies targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/PD-1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) have entered the therapeutic landscape in TNBC, but only a minority o ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-term survival of patients with stage III colon cancer treated with VRP-CEA(6D), an alphavirus vector that increases the CD8+ effector memory T cell to Treg ratio.

Journal Article Journal for immunotherapy of cancer · November 2020 BackgroundThere remains a significant need to eliminate the risk of recurrence of resected cancers. Cancer vaccines are well tolerated and activate tumor-specific immune effectors and lead to long-term survival in some patients. We hypothesized th ... Full text Cite

Stimulation of Oncogene-Specific Tumor-Infiltrating T Cells through Combined Vaccine and αPD-1 Enable Sustained Antitumor Responses against Established HER2 Breast Cancer.

Journal Article Clin Cancer Res · September 1, 2020 PURPOSE: Despite promising advances in breast cancer immunotherapy, augmenting T-cell infiltration has remained a significant challenge. Although neither individual vaccines nor immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) have had broad success as monotherapies, we h ... Full text Link to item Cite

CD47 blockade augmentation of trastuzumab antitumor efficacy dependent on antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis.

Journal Article JCI Insight · December 19, 2019 The HER2-specific monoclonal antibody (mAb), trastuzumab, has been the mainstay of therapy for HER2+ breast cancer (BC) for approximately 20 years. However, its therapeutic mechanism of action (MOA) remains unclear, with antitumor responses to trastuzumab ... Full text Link to item Cite

Vaccine-Induced Memory CD8+ T Cells Provide Clinical Benefit in HER2 Expressing Breast Cancer: A Mouse to Human Translational Study.

Journal Article Clin Cancer Res · May 1, 2019 PURPOSE: Immune-based therapy for metastatic breast cancer has had limited success, particularly in molecular subtypes with low somatic mutations rates. Strategies to augment T-cell infiltration of tumors include vaccines targeting established oncogenic dr ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Complimentary mechanisms of dual checkpoint blockade expand unique T-cell repertoires and activate adaptive anti-tumor immunity in triple-negative breast tumors.

Journal Article Oncoimmunology · 2018 Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive and molecularly diverse breast cancer subtype typified by the presence of p53 mutations (∼80%), elevated immune gene signatures and neoantigen expression, as well as the presence of tumor infiltrating l ... Full text Link to item Cite

Adaptive T cell responses induced by oncolytic Herpes Simplex Virus-granulocyte macrophage-colony-stimulating factor therapy expanded by dendritic cell and cytokine-induced killer cell adoptive therapy.

Journal Article Oncoimmunology · 2017 Purpose: Although local oncolytic viral therapy (OVT) may enhance tumor lysis, antigen release, and adaptive immune responses, systemic antitumor responses post-therapy are limited. Adoptive immunotherapy with autologous dendritic cells (DC) and cytokine-i ... Full text Link to item Cite

The ErbB2ΔEx16 splice variant is a major oncogenic driver in breast cancer that promotes a pro-metastatic tumor microenvironment.

Journal Article Oncogene · November 24, 2016 Amplification and overexpression of erbB2/neu proto-oncogene is observed in 20-30% human breast cancer and is inversely correlated with the survival of the patient. Despite this, somatic activating mutations within erbB2 in human breast cancers are rare. H ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effector T Cell Egress via Afferent Lymph Modulates Local Tissue Inflammation.

Journal Article J Immunol · October 15, 2015 Memory/effector T cells recirculate through extralymphoid tissues by entering from blood and egressing via afferent lymph. Although T cell entry into effector sites is key to inflammation, the relevance of T cell egress to this process is unknown. In this ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus Expands a Population of NKG2D+CD8+ T Cells That Exacerbates Disease in Mice Coinfected with Leishmania major.

Journal Article J Immunol · October 1, 2015 Leishmaniasis is a significant neglected tropical disease that is associated with a wide range of clinical presentations and a lifelong persistent infection. Because of the chronic nature of the disease, there is a high risk for coinfection occurring in pa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Immunosurveillance by antiangiogenesis: tumor growth arrest by T cell-derived thrombospondin-1.

Journal Article Cancer Res · April 15, 2014 Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy suggest that manipulation of the immune system to enhance the antitumor response may be a highly effective treatment modality. One understudied aspect of immunosurveillance is antiangiogenic surveillance, the regulat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Engagement of NKG2D on bystander memory CD8 T cells promotes increased immunopathology following Leishmania major infection.

Journal Article PLoS Pathog · February 2014 One of the hallmarks of adaptive immunity is the development of a long-term pathogen specific memory response. While persistent memory T cells certainly impact the immune response during a secondary challenge, their role in unrelated infections is less cle ... Full text Link to item Cite

CD4(+) T cells contribute to the remodeling of the microenvironment required for sustained tumor regression upon oncogene inactivation.

Journal Article Cancer Cell · November 16, 2010 Oncogene addiction is thought to occur cell autonomously. Immune effectors are implicated in the initiation and restraint of tumorigenesis, but their role in oncogene inactivation-mediated tumor regression is unclear. Here, we show that an intact immune sy ... Full text Link to item Cite