Dr. Laurence Wood has over a decade of experience working in the development and improvement of therapeutics for breast cancer. During his graduate studies in the Leroy Liu laboratory at Rutgers University, he was part of a research team that discovered a novel mechanism of chemotherapy resistance in breast cancer. This work elucidated a poorly understood inflammatory pathway governing this resistance mechanism, the ISG15 pathway, and its role in breast cancer aggressiveness. His postdoctoral studies under the mentorship of Dr. Yvonne Paterson at the University of Pennsylvania then applied this knowledge to the development of a novel Listeria monocytogenes(Lm)-based immunotherapy that targeted the breast tumor-specific expression of ISG15. This novel therapeutic vaccine was highly effective at reducing metastatic disease in animal models of breast cancer and was subsequently licensed by Advaxis, Inc. for clinical development. In addition to development of novel immunotherapies, Dr. Wood’s work elucidated the mechanisms governing the robust anti-tumor immune responses induced by Lm-based immunotherapies. He continues his research with Lm-based immunotherapies as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunotherapeutics and Biotechnology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
Interests
- Cancer
- Infectious disease
- Microbiology
Pharmacy Research Interests
- cancer
- cancer biology
- cancer immunotherapy
- drug delivery
- immunotherapy
- metastasis
- microenvironment
- translational medicine
- vaccine