Ragon Institute Raymond Quiñones Alvarado
Research Technician I
Garcia-Beltran Lab
NK cell biology, immune/cellular therapy
Lab 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.
Lab WebsiteWilfredo Garcia-Beltran, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
Affiliation
- Core Member and Clinician-Scientist Fellow, Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard
- Instructor, Harvard School of Medicine
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.
Related Research Foci
- Cancer Immunology
- Fundamental Immunology
- Infectious Disease Pathogenesis
- Human Immunogenetics
- CAR-T / CAR-NK Cells
Related Areas of Study
- Breast cancer
- Cancer
- Lung cancer
- Lymphoma
- Infectious Disease
- Monkeypox
- Coronaviruses
- Colon cancer
- Leukemia
Looking for Collaboration?
Contact UsSelected Publications
Evasion of NKG2D-mediated cytotoxic immunity by sarbecoviruses
Cell. April 2024
April 1, 2024
HLA class I signal peptide polymorphism determines the level of CD94/NKG2-HLA-E-mediated regulation of effector cell responses
Nat Immunol. Jul 2023
July 1, 2023
mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine boosters induce neutralizing immunity against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant
Cell. Jan 2022
January 1, 2022
sulfate proteoglycans as ligands of killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors
Front Immunol. Nov 2021; 12:798235
November 1, 2021
Innate immune reconstitution in humanized bone marrow-liver-thymus (HuBLT) mice governs adaptive cellular immune function and responses to HIV-1 infection
Front Immunol. May 2021; 12: 667393
May 1, 2021
Multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants escape neutralization by vaccine-induced humoral immunity
Cell. Apr 2021; 184(9): 2372-2383
April 1, 2021
COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies predict disease severity and survival
Cell. Jan 2021; 184(2): 476-488
January 1, 2021
PRE-PRINT: Applying CRISPR-based genetic screens to identify drivers of tumor-cell sensitivity
bioRxiv. Jan 2019
January 1, 2019
Lab Team
Linda Chen
Graduate Student
Madison Leone
Research Technician I
Ryan Din, MD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Eric Grewal, MD, MMSc
Postdoctoral Fellow
Uri Bulow, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dagny Reese
Graduate Student