I am an NIH R37 MERIT award funded physician-scientist whose overarching career goal is to develop innovative cell-based immunotherapies for patients with cancers of high unmet medical need. To accomplish this goal, I have developed a multidisciplinary translational research program that is pursuing the following complementary aims: 1) to identify shared (or “public”) neoantigens resulting from recurrently mutated driver oncogenes and therapeutically target cancers expressing these epitopes using patient-derived T cell receptors (TCRs), and 2) to resolve the molecular mechanisms that limit adoptively transferred lymphocyte persistence and develop novel mechanism-based strategies to disrupt these pathways. Simultaneously, I am committed to providing a robust training and mentorship environment for clinical and laboratory trainees who seek to develop expertise in the preclinical and early clinical development of cellular immuno-therapeutics.