Abigail Overacre-Delgoffe, PhD
Abby Overacre-Delgoffe, PhD, assistant professor in the Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Immunology and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, has received a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) New Innovator Award for her project, “Microbiota initiation of lymphangiogenesis.”
Totaling $1.5 million over 5 years, the award will fund research to better understand how gut bacteria drive the development of tertiary lymphoid structures, organized immune cell structures that often form at sites of inflammation, including tumors. The presence of tertiary lymphoid structures can predict response to immunotherapy and prognosis, so understanding how they develop could pave the way for new therapies to improve cancer outcomes.
