Veethika Pandey, PhD

Dr. Veethika Pandey is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, under the mentorship of Dr. Daniel J. Powell Jr. Her research interest lies in developing novel ways to overcome immunosuppression in solid tumor microenvironment to enhance immunotherapies. Currently, she is working on armoring ovarian tumor infiltrating lymphocytes with costimulatory signals to enhance their tumor-targeting potential in autologous PDX mouse models. Dr. Pandey obtained her PhD in biomedical sciences at the University of Central Florida, under the mentorship of Dr. Deborah Altomare. Her dissertation work focused on developing cytotoxic natural killer cell expansion methods to support in vivo persistence and better tumor targeting. She also worked on several other projects focused on developing transgenic mouse models of pancreatic cancer development and tested anti-metastatic compounds in orthotopic tumor models. After completing her graduate training, she worked as a Research Fellow at Mayo Clinic, in Dr. Peter Storz’s lab. She obtained grant funding from the pancreatic cancer SPORE program to study reprogramming of macrophage polarization in the tumor microenvironment. During this time, she acquired a wide skill-set for studying solid tumor microenvironment, utilizing multiple pre-clinical models. OCRA’s support at this stage of her career will help her utilize an extensive background in tumor immunology to develop novel approaches for personalized immunotherapies against ovarian cancer.