Matthew Brown
Matthew Brown was spending his first year of college studying cell biology and neuroscience and exploring the full breadth of academic opportunities when his grandfather passed away from an aggressive form of lung cancer.
“That drove me toward the field of cancer biology and immunotherapy,” Mr. Brown says. “I became interested in the potential of translational studies to improve patient treatment.”
It was an interest that led Mr. Brown to the Master of Science in Clinical Research program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
He knew that Mount Sinai had a robust immunotherapy program and was a highly collaborative environment for research—not just internally but with other academic institutions and organizations across New York City.
“The potential to have a significant impact in improving patient outcomes and expanding the range of therapeutic options available to patients is what excites me.”
Once enrolled, he was drawn to the lab of Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, who has made seminal contributions to human dendritic cell biology, studying their crucial function as sentinels of the immune system and their application in vaccine design. Mr. Brown planned to conduct research evaluating adaptive immune responses to new tumor antigens until the COVID-19 pandemic became New York City’s—and the world’s—most significant public health threat.
Mr. Brown quickly shifted his research focus to explore adaptive immune responses in the context of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Specifically, his research is primarily focused on viral epitopes, the part of the antigen that is recognized by T cell and B cell receptors following exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and how this viral recognition is replicated in the context of vaccination.
“In doing these high-sensitivity mapping studies, we began to identify the shared and highly dominant epitopes that may provide the foundation for monitoring people after exposure and vaccination to assess their immunity and how that is sustained,” says Mr. Brown. “These mapping studies also allowed us to consider the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on immune recognition and identify potential targets for next-generation coronavirus vaccines.”
Mr. Brown, who graduated from the Clinical Research program in 2021, envisions using the same tools to identify shared and highly dominant epitopes on tumor antigens to enhance vaccine design in the context of cancer immunotherapy. He is now enrolled in the PhD in Biomedical Sciences Program at the Graduate School to continue his translational immunology training.
“My ultimate goal is to start my own lab to conduct translational research on therapeutics and vaccines in the context of cancer,” he says. “The potential to have a significant impact in improving patient outcomes and expanding the range of therapeutic options available to patients is what excites me.”