Dr. Alok Kumar, an Indian origin scholar, is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the lab in January 2021. He completed his M.Sc. Biotechnology from ‘Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR), Roorkee, India’ in 2013. For his doctoral study, he moved to Kyoto, Japan and received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2020 under Prof. Tasuku Honjo (Nobel Prize, Medicine, 2018). In his doctoral research work, Alok broadly classified the different mechanisms of unresponsiveness employed by cancers against immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy.
In his postdoctoral study here, he is working on T cell exhaustion. T cell exhaustion, a state of unresponsiveness, limits the efficacy of ICB therapy. Rejuvenating exhausted T cells would be able to clear tumor burden. In the current postdoctoral training, Alok is very interested to study the causal factors that make the T cells exhausted and how to rejuvenate them for better cancer treatment. He is also very enthusiastic to study immune-aging and Tregs.
What immune cell are you? CD8 T cell
Pizza or Tacos? Pizza
What Hogwarts house would you be in? Ravenclaw
What is your favorite sandwich? Veggie & hummus