NK cell biology, immune/cellular therapy

Research Overview

The Garcia-Beltran Lab focuses on discovering dominant pathways of NK-cell recognition and killing of target cells – both cancerous and virally infected – for the development of NK cell-based immune and cellular therapies.

In our laboratory, we seek to identify the “innate checkpoints” that regulate the susceptibility and resistance of target cells to NK-cell killing using CRISPR/Cas9 screens. In addition, we employ rational design of NK-based cellular therapy against liquid and solid cancers for enhanced survival, homing, infiltration, and killing, which will be tested both in vitro and in humanized mouse models. Furthermore, we explore the mechanisms of NK-cell recognition of cells infected with viruses such as HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 and how these viruses evade the immune system.

About

Dr. Garcia-Beltran is originally from Puerto Rico, where he obtained a bachelor's in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras in 2010. He subsequently entered into a cross-institutional MD/PhD program where he received his PhD degree in Immunology from Harvard University and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018. He pursued clinical specialty training in Clinical Pathology with sub-specialty training in Transfusion Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and carried out post-doctoral research in NK-cell biology and cellular therapies as well as immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccines. He is currently leading his own laboratory as a Clinician-Scientist Fellow at Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard.