Krishneel commenced his PhD in the Jenkins Laboratory at WEHI in 2023. He was the recipient of the The Ann Henderson Scholarship in 2022 and is excited about continuing his early career work with another of our research superstars, Associate Professor Misty Jenkins.
Here, Krishneel gives us an insight into his work & aspirations for the future of brain cancer research.
Where did you study prior to commencing your PhD?
I completed a Bachelor of Biomedicine at The University of Melbourne where I focused on learning human physiology and immunology. In 2022 I took on an Honours year at WEHI in the Jenkins Lab and learnt about high grade brain cancers and immunotherapy development.
What drew you to work on brain cancer?
After learning that survival has not increased in decades for people with high grade brain cancers, I knew that working on new therapeutic strategies is essential in this space. The emerging role for immunotherapies to tackle brain cancer drew me in due to the potential for great impact on patient survival and improvement of quality of life. Further, the investigations to understand brain tumour biology paired with synthetic receptor design strategies is an approach I find highly fascinating and promising.
What’s your biggest achievement so far?
Receiving the Colman Speed award in 2022 for achieving the highest overall score across the WEHI honours cohort. To me, this reaffirmed my growing capacity to communicate scientific ideas, plan investigations and think more broadly about how my research fits in the brain cancer field. Most importantly, it was a result of the immense support provided by the Jenkins Lab which is a major factor for why I chose to continue with my PhD here.
Can you describe your research?
A relatively new treatment strategy for brain cancer involves taking part of a patient’s own immune system, their T cells and engineering it in the lab so that when re-delivered, it has a greater ability to detect and kill tumour cells. My research aims to explore how to best design these engineered T cells so that they follow additional rulesets. This includes how to overcome these cells mistakenly identifying healthy cells as tumour cells and how to have them understand they are in the brain and not in another organ. Together, engineering a smarter T cell would likely mean a safer immunotherapy for patients.
What’s your hope for your research?
I hope that the synthetic receptor approach we take for making safer CAR T cell therapies for brain cancer will be readily adoptable in future immunotherapeutic applications by ourselves and other research groups. If we can demonstrate that our layers of regulation are functional for multiple, independent immunotherapies, then our work has translational potential, with the goal of improving quality of life during treatment, and hopefully, overall survival.
What are your hobbies?
I enjoy playing soccer and find that getting some exercise through a team-based sport is a fantastic way to separate myself from my focus on research.
Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Surround yourself with the right people.
