Bio:

Kelsey completed her doctoral training in 2024 at Emory University in the lab of Drs. Mandy Ford and Chrystal Paulos. Prior to attending Emory, she worked at Thunder Biotech manufacturing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) constructs for the treatment of breast cancer. In her doctoral work, Kelsey focused on modulating the CD8 T cell response in the context of antitumor immunity as well as allograft transplantation. Specifically, she identified a CD8 T cell intrinsic pathway limiting patient response to immune checkpoint blockade. More recently, she has found that exhausted CD8 T cells can secrete their own off switch in an autocrine regulatory manner to dampen the T cell response. Kelsey has received an F99/K00 fellowship from the NCI to study other molecules that T cells may secrete that can be harnessed in the treatment of disease.