Cristina Puig Saus, PhD

Dr. Cristina Puig Saus' research efforts are mainly focused on the understanding of natural T cell responses to cancer and the design and clinical translation of new cellular therapies for solid tumors. Her lab is currently studying the neopitope-specific T cell responses induced after immune checkpoint blockade in patients that respond or do not respond to therapy, with the objective to define what constitutes an effective antitumor T cell response. They are also interested in developing novel CAR-T cell therapies for melanoma. They are currently starting the IND-enabling studies for one of their candidates and in parallel designing additional CAR-T cell based strategies and combination therapies. Her additional interests include the design of strategies to improve T cell gene editing for their use in adoptive T cell therapy for cancer.

Puig-Saus C, Ribas A. Gene editing: Towards the third generation of adoptive T-cell transfer therapies. Immuno-Oncology Technology 2019 June 13; 1:19-26.

Mehta A, Kim YJ, Robert L, Tsoi J, Comin-Anduix B, Berent-Maoz B, Cochran AJ, Economou JS, Tumeh PC, Puig-Saus C, Ribas A. Immunotherapy Resistance by Inflammation-Induced Dedifferentiation. Cancer Discov. 2018 Aug;8(8):935-943. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-1178. Epub 2018 Jun 13.

Roth TL, Puig-Saus C, Yu R, Shifrut E, Carnevale J, Li PJ, Hiatt J, Saco J, Krystofinski P, Li H, Tobin V, Nguyen DN, Lee MR, Putnam AL, Ferris AL, Chen JW, Schickel JN, Pellerin L, Carmody D, Alkorta-Aranburu G, Del Gaudio D, Matsumoto H, Morell M, Mao Y, Cho M, Quadros RM, Gurumurthy CB, Smith B, Haugwitz M, Hughes SH, Weissman JS, Schumann K, Esensten JH, May AP, Ashworth A, Kupfer GM, Greeley SAW, Bacchetta R, Meffre E, Roncarolo MG, Romberg N, Herold KC, Ribas A, Leonetti MD, Marson A. Reprogramming human T cell function and specificity with non-viral genome targeting. Nature. 2018 Jul;559(7714):405-409. doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0326-5. Epub 2018 Jul 11.

Puig-Saus C, Parisi G, Garcia-Diaz A, Krystofinski PE, Sandoval S, Zhang R, Champhekar AS, McCabe J, Cheung-Lau GC, Truong NA, Vega-Crespo A, Komenan MDS, Pang J, Macabali MH, Saco JD, Goodwin JL, Bolon B, Seet CS, Montel-Hagen A, Crooks GM, Hollis RP, Campo-Fernandez B, Bischof D, Cornetta K, Gschweng EH, Adelson C, Nguyen A, Yang L, Witte ON, Baltimore D, Comin-Anduix B, Kohn DB, Wang X, Cabrera P, Kaplan-Lefko PJ, Berent-Maoz B, Ribas A. IND-Enabling Studies for a Clinical Trial to Genetically Program a Persistent Cancer-Targeted Immune System. Clin Cancer Res. 2019 Feb 1;25(3):1000-1011. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-18-0963. Epub 2018 Nov 8.