Targeting Aggressive Cancers

In his Immunoengineering Research Laboratory, Ashish Kulkarni—who is the Edward S. Price Faculty Fellow and associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, as well as the associate director of the Center for Bioactive Delivery in the Institute for Applied Life Sciences—leads a research team working at the intersection of bioengineering, immunology and cancer studies. In particular, Kulkarni’s lab is targeting aggressive forms of cancer that are often resistant to traditional treatments, with the aim of making immunotherapy effective for as many cancer patients as possible.

Kulkarni seeks to advance a fundamental understanding of how cancer cells interact with the immune system, including why certain types of cancer don’t respond to current forms of immunotherapy. With this knowledge, he develops novel nanotechnology-based delivery platforms to activate immune cells to target cancer. In addition, he is working to identify biomarkers (molecules on the surface of cancer or immune cells, or molecules released by these cells) to predict how individual patients will respond to specific treatments. 

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“We know cancer is complex. Individuals’ immune systems also work differently, with some being stronger than others, so personalization is key,” Kulkarni says. “With the therapies we’re developing, we want to boost the immune system to be stronger and remove the ‘cloak’ that cancer cells use to avoid detection. We are also thinking about combination therapies, with multiple drugs that can activate different arms of the immune system to most effectively target the cancer and create long-lasting immune responses.” 

Among his many other recognitions, Kulkarni was most recently named to the National Academy of Inventors 2024 Class of Senior Members, an honor awarded to researchers who have developed innovative technologies that make a meaningful impact on the welfare of society. He also received the 2024 Langer Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Excellence from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for his work on identifying a biomarker that is overexpressed in the blood of patients with early- stage ovarian cancer—a discovery that could offer a new approach for the detection and screening of ovarian cancer.