Bob McGray, PhD

I completed my PhD training at McMaster University in the laboratory of Dr. Jonathan Bramson prior to coming to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center as a Postdoctoral Fellow. While a Postdoc at Roswell Park, I trained in the laboratory of Dr. Kunle Odunsi, a world leader in developing immunotherapies for ovarian cancer. Working with Dr. Odunsi, I focused on approaches to effectively combine oncolytic virotherapy with cancer vaccines, adoptive T cell transfer (ACT), and checkpoint inhibitors to enhance antitumor immunity in the context of advanced and metastatic cancer. While a Postdoc, I was awarded the OCRA Ann and Sol Schreiber Mentored Investigator Award (Mentor: Dr. Kunle Odunsi), where my studies focused on combining oncolytic virotherapy with ACT. Following my Postdoctoral training, I spent two years working at a clinical stage Biotech company (Northern Biologics) developing cancer immunotherapies prior to returning to Roswell Park to start my own laboratory. Since starting my own lab, I have focused on utilizing immune cell engagers (e.g. BiTEs/TriTEs/Innate Cell engagers; ICEs) to direct T cells or other immune cells to target both the tumor and surrounding stroma. Specifically, we are exploring strategies of improving both local immune cell engager activity and duration of effective delivery in the tumor microenvironment through engineering engager ‘armed’ immune cells for adoptive cell transfer.