Om Gandhi

Research Interest:

I am a PhD student funded by the Rhodes Scholarship and the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, researching the role of antigen processing machinery in tumor immune escape under Dr. Tim Elliott/Dr. Malcolm Sim (Oxford CIO) and Dr. Ronald Germain (NIH NIAID). I am interested in combining computational/mathematical modeling, calibrated to patient tumor data, with experimental and imaging methods to understand how tumors evolve by regulating the trimming of peptide precursors in the cytosol and their transport into the endoplasmic reticulum. Ultimately, I hope this work will inform the development of both immune escape-resistant cancer therapies and clinical biomarkers of tumor evolution.

Background:

Previously, I received my B.A. in Neuroscience and Public Health at the University of Pennsylvania, conducting research on perturbing the MYCN-polyamine axis to rewire tumor metabolism and promote immunotherapy effectiveness in neuroblastoma under Dr. Michael Hogarty and Dr. Christina Turn at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I concurrently received my M.S. in Bioengineering, working under Dr. Saar Gill and Dr. Nathan Welty at Penn Medicine's Center for Cellular Immunotherapies on genetically engineering myeloid hematopoiesis to develop chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-macrophages that are persistent and resistant to anti-inflammatory polarization by tumors. Alongside this lab work, I collaborated with mentors across Penn Radiology and Penn Neurosurgery, including Dr. Abass Alavi, Dr. Christina Jackson, and Dr. Omar Choudhri, to develop novel imaging approaches for cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring in clinical settings.