Overview:
Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, is Director of the University of Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC), and Dean for Oncology, the AbbVie Distinguished Service Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Odunsi's lab focuses on understanding immune mechanisms at play in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and translates that understanding into clinical trials for ovarian cancer. In the TME, the immune system and tumor cells battle back and forth, and our lab is working to optimize conditions so that the immune system wins and tumor cells are cleared.
The Odunsi Lab is oriented toward clinical translation objectives, and the projects span from basic science to preclinical models, pre-clinical IND-enabling toxicity studies, clinical research, and clinical trials.
Research interests:
- Immunological mechanisms in anti-tumor responses in the tumor microenvironment
- Immunotherapy in gynecological cancer clinical trials
- Pre-clinical and clinical development of tumor antigen targeted therapies
- Mechanisms of immune recognition and localized immunosuppression in human ovarian cancer tumor microenvironments.
Currently, Dr. Odunsi is Principal Investigator of the Roswell Park/University of Chicago Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Ovarian Cancer (P50CA159981). Other funding sources for the Odunsi Lab include the US Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Cancer Institute.