ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2024
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Jeffrey Joseph Ishizuka, MD, DPhil is a medical oncologist who treats melanoma and Merkel cell carcinoma patients and Principal Investigator of the Ishizuka Lab. His laboratory studies the tumor-immune microenvironment and seeks to uncover novel approaches by which inflammation can be manipulated to improve cancer immunotherapies. Dr. Ishizuka trained in human and murine viral immunology at Oxford University and the NIH on Rhodes and NIH Biomedical Scholarships, characterizing mechanisms of CD8+ T cell immunodominance and cross-reactivity. Following his research training, he completed his MD at Harvard Medical School, internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Medical Oncology Fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. During his post-doctoral work he utilized functional genomics to identify novel innate immune checkpoints that modulate dsRNA sensing in tumor cells. His lab currently works to develop novel tools for measuring TME inflammation, interrogates the rules of inflammatory processes and translate novel therapies for patients.