Li Shen

PhD

Research Interests:

Immune macro- and microenvironment in patients with ovarian or genitourinary cancer, especially patients with advance or metastatic diseases Immunomodulation by epigenetic and inflammation-targeting approaches and underlying mechanism Develop novel combination immunotherapy for ovarian, kidney and prostate cancer Target immunosuppressive myeloid populations to prevent and treat metastatic cancers

About Li Shen

Positions

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • Assistant Professor of Oncology
  • Department of Medicine

Background

Education and Training:

  • 2012 - Postdoctoral Training - Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY
  • 2009 - Postdoctoral Training - Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
  • 2006 - PhD - Pennsylvania State University, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, Hershey, PA
  • 1999 - MS - Molecular Genetics, Nankai University, College of Life Science, Tianjin, China

Professional Memberships:

  • 2012 - American Association of Cancer Research (AACR)
  • 2012 - American Association of Immunologists (AAI)

Research

Research Overview:

Dr. Shen’s research is based on investigation of complex immune macro- and microenvironment in patients with advance, or metastatic ovarian or genitourinary cancer. Her research reveals multiple molecular and cellular mechanisms of immunomodulation by epigenetic and inflammation-targeting approaches.

She has focused work on developing novel combination immunotherapy by targeting immunosuppressive factors in the tumor microenvironment, and mechanism to regulate differentiation and promote anti-tumor function of T effectors cells. More recently, she works on epigenetic approach to enhance adoptive T cell transfer immunotherapy in ovarian cancer.

Areas of Expertise

  • Translational research (from lab to clinical trials) on immunotherapy for ovarian and genitourinary cancer
  • Improve anti-tumor immune responses with epigenetic or other targeted strategies and develop efficient combination therapy
  • Various mechanisms to target immunosuppressive factors in the tumor microenvironment, and mechanism to regulate differentiation and promote anti-tumor function of T effectors cells

Publications

Full Publications list on PubMed
  • Shen, L and Pili, R. Tasquinimod targets suppressive myeloid cells in the tumor microenvironment. OncoImmunology. Accepted. 2015 DOI: 10.1080/2162402X.2015.1072672 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2162402X.2015.1072672
  • Shen L, Sundstedt A, Ciesielski MJ, Miles KM, Celander M, Adelaiye R, Orillion A, Ciamporcero E, Ramakrishnan S, Ellis L, Fenstermaker RA, Abrams SI, Eriksson H, Leanderson T, Olsson A, Pili R. Tasquinimod modulates suppressive myeloid cells and enhances cancer immunotherapies in murine models. Cancer Immunol Res. 2015. 3(2):136-48
  • Ciamporcero E, Miles KM, Adelaiye R, Ramakrishnan S, Shen L, Ku SY, Pizzimenti S, Sennino B, Barrera G, Pili R. Combination strategy targeting VEGF and HGF/c-met in human renal cell carcinoma models. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 2015. 14(1):101-10
  • Shen L and Pili R. Class I histone deacetylase inhibition is a novel mechanism to target regulatory T cells in immunotherapy. OncoImmunology. 2012. 1(6) 948-950.
  • Shen L, Ciesielski M, Ramakrishnan S, Miles KM, Ellis L, Sotomayor P, Shrikant P, Fenstermaker R and Pili R. Class I Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor Entinostat Suppresses Regulatory T Cells and Enhances Immunotherapies in Renal and Prostate Cancer Models. PLoS ONE. 2012. 7(1). e30815