Medical Student
Loma Linda University School of Medicine
My name is David Lee and I am a medical student at Loma Linda University who has completed 3 years and is now in a research year working under the mentorship of accomplished physician-scientist, Dr. Amanda Kirane at Stanford. I am interested in refining treatments for oncologic diseases through dissecting mechanisms, finding novel molecular targets, and optimizing therapeutic regimens for each patient in a personalized manner. My passion for studying oncology began when I was a junior at UC Berkeley and joined the lab of renowned structural biologist, Professor John Kuriyan. There, I dissected the relationship between stability and activation in KRas, a strong oncogenic driver, using saturation mutagenesis, giving additional molecular insight into how mutations at specific sites in KRas drive tumor cell proliferation. My desire to understand the multiple drivers of cancer continued in medical school where I studied E6 inhibition in HPV+ head and neck cancers by using small molecular 30-hydroxy-gambogic acid. I have always been interested in understanding all of the different signaling pathways that occur within cellular cytoplasm and how aberrations within these pathways can potentially help revolutionize how these patients are being treated.
In my current lab, instead of focusing on the proliferative-promoting pathways of cancer, I am taking a deeper dive into understanding the composition of immune microenvironments that allow tumors to evade immune surveillance and resist therapies currrently on the market. The gold standard treatment for advanced melanoma consists of adjuvant immunotherapy, yet more than 50% of patients cannot mount an adequate response and the risk of adverse effects remains present. Rescuing therapeutic resistance and finding optimal routes of immunotherapy for a variety of solid tumors are subjects that I would like to continue to investigate throughout my physician career.