Cristina Puig-Saus, Ph.D. is an Adjunct Assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Puig-Saus is also a Senior Fellow from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) and a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) and the Broad Stem Cell Research Center (BSRCR). She graduated from the University of Barcelona, and, after completing her Ph.D. work developing strategies to improve the design of oncolytic adenovirus, she joined Dr. Ribas’ team at UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow. During her postdoctoral training, she focused on developing new adoptive cell therapy strategies using hematopoietic stem cells. She led the preclinical effort that culminated in a clinical trial that opened at UCLA to co-administer stem cells and T cells genetically modified to express a NY-ESO TCR for the treatment of melanoma, multiple myeloma, and sarcoma.
Dr. Puig-Saus’ laboratory at UCLA focuses on the design and clinical translation of novel TCR and CAR-engineered T cell therapies for cancer treatment. To this end, Dr. Puig-Saus' team is developing multiple receptors and other engineering strategies to generate potent T cell-based cancer therapeutics. Her team is also studying the mechanisms behind the successful T cell responses unleashed by immune checkpoint blockade in patients with response to therapy to mimic these successful T cell responses into engineered therapies.