Scholars@Duke
Erika J Crosby

Erika J Crosby

Assistant Professor in Surgery
Surgery, Surgical Sciences
203 Research Drive, MSRB1 Box 2606, Durham, NC 27710
MSRB1 Room 288, Durham, NC 27710

Scholarly Works - Journal articles

Enhanced efficacy of a next-generation EEEV self-replicating RNA platform for combination cancer immunotherapies.

Journal article Mol Ther · July 1, 2026 Self-replicating RNA (srRNA) technology has received its first approval with Kostaive and Emergency Use Authorization for GEMCOVAC COVID-19 vaccines. The effective doses for srRNA vaccines are far lower than for conventional mRNA, as srRNA drives greater p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Vector-directed immunity and boosting capacity of VRP-srRNA anti-tumor vaccines.

Journal article NPJ Vaccines · March 16, 2026 Self-replicating RNA vaccines delivered by viral replicon particles (VRPs) induce strong immunity, but repeated dosing on short intervals may be limited by vector responses. In patient samples and mice, VRP-srRNA vaccination generated VRP-neutralizing anti ... Full text Link to item Cite

CD27 agonism enhances long-lived CD4 T cell vaccine responses critical for antitumor immunity.

Journal article Sci Immunol · December 19, 2025 Tumor antigen vaccination represents an appealing approach for cancer but has failed to materialize as oncologic standard of care. To understand long-term vaccine efficacy, we conducted a retrospective analysis of patients with human epidermal growth recep ... Full text Link to item Cite

A platform for multisite immune profiling of premetastatic pancreatic cancer at single-cell resolution.

Journal article Cancer Immunol Immunother · August 23, 2025 BACKGROUND: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterized by exceedingly high rates of metastatic progression, with the liver representing the most common site of distant spread. Here, we established a platform for multisite immune profiling of ... Full text Link to item Cite

Phase Ib/II study of Pembrolizumab with Lanreotide depot for advanced, progressive Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PLANET).

Journal article J Neuroendocrinol · April 2025 While performing a study of immune checkpoint blockade with the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab combined with the somatostatin analogue (SSA) lanreotide in patients with low- and intermediate-grade gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), ... Full text Link to item Cite

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

Journal article Hum Vaccin Immunother · December 31, 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 inevitably res ... Full text Link to item 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

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

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 J Immunother Cancer · November 2020 BACKGROUND: There 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 that vacc ... Full text Link to item 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