Wansang Cho

Find this exciting work we pre-printed, of using SCRs to engineer user-defined macrophage states! Now, we can fine-tune cytokine signals with SCRs to design macrophage phenotypes. It is my pleasure to be part of this wonderful work!

🚨What if we could reliably program macrophage polarization state?🚨 biorxiv.org/content/10.648… Macrophages are highly plastic immune cells that perform critical functions by polarizing into distinct cellular states. The polarization state of macrophages can substantially influences the progression of cancers, infections, and autoimmunity. (1/11)

STING agonist nanoparticles trigger potent antitumor immunity in mice and rabbits @ScienceMagazine @UMich science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Solid tumors are often considered "cold"-- meaning there is no inherent inflammation that attracts the "good" immune cells, or such tumors modify their environment to make it inhospitable to our immune cells (that would otherwise eradicate the cancer). We want our tumors "hot" if you please-- as that is correlated with positive outcomes for patients. Natural killer (NK) cells are considered part of the innate immune system... originally thought of as being singularly targeted to certain foreign antigens from pathogens or cells running amok -- like cancer cells. In this paper (Horowitz et al of the Sunwoo lab and many others here at Stanford) we show that NK cells can be re-educated in a manner that allows them to enter tumors, make them "hot" and thereby opening an entirely new avenue for cell therapies (as with CAR-T therapy). Let the race begin... science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Guillaume’s latest paper went online yesterday @CellRepMed! This research shows that a quad-blockade overcomes immune resistance in colorectal cancer by reprogramming macrophage-T cell crosstalk to induce high rates of tumor clearance. Check it out here: cell.com/cell-reports-m…

Reprogramming T cell-myeloid crosstalk overcomes immune resistance in colorectal cancer @CellRepMed @BhardwajLab @IcahnMountSinai @rsamstein cell.com/cell-reports-m…

1/ Thrilled to share our new paper, out today in @Nature: "Non-invasive profiling of the tumour microenvironment with spatial ecotypes". Paper (open access): nature.com/articles/s4158…

Context-specific gene functions to restore targeted T cell-based elimination of dysfunctional cells via synthetically lethal, RNA-based interventions @NatureGenet @LivnatJerby @Stanford nature.com/articles/s4158…

Tyrosine kinase inhibitor Ponatinib inhibits LCK and PI3K signaling to enhance the transcriptional functions of TCF7 and FOXO1, thereby promoting CD8+ TSCM cell differentiation for improved antitumor T cell activity 🇯🇵 nature.com/articles/s4146…

Radiation is a powerful anti-cancer agent, but I considered it a weak immunomodulator. Our new study @CD_AACR changed my mind: in the right context, RT can incite potent systemic immune responses in patients (even rare irAEs). Which context? brnw.ch/21x1b6E A 🧵 /1

Excited to share our paper on engineering spatially targeted immune cells is now out in @NatImmunol. nature.com/articles/s4159… #CRISPR activation screens reveal that engineering metabolite-sensing NK and T cells provides programmable mechanisms to target solid tumors. Congrats to @komong0702, Mike Tsai, and the team! Thanks to @ocrahope, @StanfordCancer, @AllenInstitute, @BWFUND, @czbiohub, @genome_gov, Tull Family Foundation, @stanfordcbio, @Stanford Genetics and @StanfordMed for the support.

I am so excited to share our new paper in @Nature: the first programmable, site-specific integration of a large DNA payload into T cells in vivo. A single IV injection results in therapeutic levels of TRAC-targeted CAR T cells in multiple models. #Ack1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4158… a 🧵

Today we report single-cell APEX-seq (scAPEX-seq) — a new method for unbiased mapping of *subcellular* transcriptomes at single-cell resolution. This approach reveals cell states that are not detectable by standard scRNA-seq, and enabled us to identify regulators of CAR T function that improve solid tumor killing. biorxiv.org/cgi/content/sh…

Check out the video interview 🎥 highlighting our work on programmable JAK/STAT signaling to design improved CAR T cell therapies! 🧬🧫

On the #AACRBlog: Read about three studies from #AACRio26 that leverage innovative science to give the immune system a better chance against cancer. brnw.ch/21x0BVo @idibaps @Stanford @MIT @ScienceWansang @MegTriesScience

Review @Cancer_Cell @MiriamMerad @SinaiImmunol Macrophages: Targets for next-generation cancer immunotherapy cell.com/cancer-cell/fu…

Thanks, Gabe!

Also, I am grateful for the Scholar-in-training award at #AACRIO2026! Many congratulations to the fellow awardees 👏

Owen N. Witte, Christopher A. Klebanoff, Wansang Cho, and Yongfeng He discussed "New Breakthroughs in TCR Engineering" in a major symposium at the AACR IO Conference on Discovery and Innovation in Cancer Immunology. #AACRIO26 @KlebanoffLab

@AACR Thank you for such a wonderful opportunity to connect with fellow scientists in the field! #AACRIO2026