Kristen Batich Vaios
Dr. Batich is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuro-Oncologist at the Duke Cancer Institute and Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center who cares for patients with primary central nervous system tumors. She began her research career working in the laboratory of John Sampson, MD, PhD studying the mechanisms underlying migration of dendritic cell vaccines in glioblastoma. Since her PhD, Dr. Batich has become a key investigator in the several brain tumor immunotherapy peptide and cellular vaccine trials at Duke. She has been awarded the Duke-NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award as a fellow. Now, she leads her own laboratory investigating the immunoregulation of brain tumors that develop in pediatric and adult patients.
Her research efforts occupy three domains: 1) preclinical modeling to understand how antigen-presenting immune cells migrate into brain tumors, discover brain tumor antigens, and educate the immune system, 2) discovery of differences in viral immunity in brain tumor patients that can better predict responses to our cancer vaccines, and 3) bringing new immunotherapy clinical trials to Duke that stem from discoveries in her lab with the promise of enhancing immune responses for patients with brain tumors.
Abstracts this author is presenting: