Xue Han, PhD

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of acute leukemia in adults with 20,000 new cases diagnosed annually in US. It is also quite deadly, and has a 5-year overall survival rate of less than 30%, killing more than 11,000 people each year in US. For decades, the mainstay of AML treatment has remained chemotherapy. The use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and targeted therapies shows promising responses in select AML subsets. However, many patients develop relapsed and refractory diseases. Therefore, more therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. The successes of immunotherapies especially immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) to treat solid tumors have led to major efforts to develop immunotherapies for the treatment of patients with AML. In this proposal, we will be focusing on a novel immune checkpoint molecule called PD-1H (also called VISTA). We will use both clinical samples from patients with AML as well as preclinical animal models of AML, to examine the role of PD-1H in immune suppression and disease progression. Based on our finding, we will develop new immunotherapy targeting PD-1H and test them in therapeutic preclinical animal models. Our study will provide new insights into the current understanding of immunosuppression mechanisms in AML and may lead to new ICB therapy and combinational therapy for AML treatment.