Danielle R. Cook
Assistant Professor, Pharmacology
Primary Location
345 Crispell Dr
MR6 G707
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
MR6 G707
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
Primary Phone Number
Email
Bio & Overview
Our lab is dedicated to overcoming the significant barriers of cell therapies in solid tumors to create and improve new oncology treatments. We focus on three core areas:
1. TCR Discovery: Leveraging our advanced technology, we screen hundreds of TCRs to find collections of tumor-specific TCRs across various cancer types. We aim to discover and utilize a collection of TCRs for a given cancer indication. We have a novel CRISPR/Cas9 editing strategy to facilitate a polyclonal TCR-T therapy.
2. Antigen Identification: Our unique platform pinpoints the precise peptides targeted by tumor-specific TCRs. This facilitates the thorough safety profiling essential for developing effective off-the-shelf TCR-T products.
3. Next-Generation T Cell Edits: We employ high-throughput genetics consisting of CRISPR (KO/a/i), ORFs, and rational synthetic molecules to screen for improved in vivo functionality of T cells, such as persistence and overcoming exhaustion.
Academic Information
- Department
- Pharmacology
Research Interests
Immuno-Oncology, T cell therapy, TCR Discovery, Next generation cell therapy
Research Opportunities
- Biotechnology
- Cancer Biology
- Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy
- Experimental Pathology
- Molecular Pharmacology
PhD Programs
- Pharmacology
Selected Publications
- Moravec Z, Yue Z, Voog R, Cook DR, Kinrot S, Capra B, Raud B, Jiayu O, Xuan J, Wei Teng, Ren L, Hu D, Wang J, Haanen John, Schumacher TN, Chen X, Porter E, Scheper W. “Discovery of tumor-reactive T cell receptors by massively parallel library synthesis and screening” Nat Biotech.
- Martin TD, Patel RS, Cook DR, Choi MY, Patil A, Liang AC, Li MZ, Haigis KM, Elledge SJ. “The adaptive immune system is a major driver of selection for tumor suppressor gene inactivation.” Science. 2021 Sep 17;373(6561):1327-1335.
- Yin Y, Boesteanu AC, Binder ZA, Xu C, Reid RA, Rodriguez JL, Cook DR, Thokala R, Blouch K, McGettigan-Croce B, Zhang L, Konradt C, Cogdill AP, Panjwani MK, Jiang S, Migliorini D, Dahmane N, Posey AD Jr, June CH, Mason NJ, Lin Z, O’Rourke DM, Johnson LA. “Checkpoint Blockade Reverses Anergy in IL-13Rα2 Humanized scFv-Based CAR T Cells to Treat Murine and Canine Gliomas.” Mol Ther Oncolytics. 2018 Aug 28;11:20-38.