Nandita Kumar, Phd Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Washington, United States

• Tracking antigen-specific T cell phenotypes during immune checkpoint blockade therapy to identify correlates of response.
• Designing experimental workflows to simultaneously perform mass cytometry (CyTOF), multiplexed MHC-tetramer staining and single-cell multi-omics (10X/CITE-seq) to obtain high dimensional T cell characterization data.
• Performing multi-modal data analysis of surface marker expression, antigen specificity, gene expression, and TCR sequence data to identify phenotypic changes related to clinical response status

Greater Seattle Area

• Completed PhD in Dr. Evan W. Newell's lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer CenterThesis: Comprehensive Epstein-Barr virus-specific T cell profiling and multi-omics analysis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma CD8 T cells reveals.
• Discovered a novel CD8 T cell surface marker phenotype that is unique to Epstein-Barr virus-specific T cells from individuals with Epstein-Barr virus driven nasopharyngeal carcinoma and that is correlated to advanced.
• Generated a high dimensional CyTOF dataset to deeply profile antigen-specific T cells in NPC patients
• Performed single-cell multi-omics on CD8 T cells from NPC patients to identify gene expression pathways and TCR clonal dynamics pertinent to the biological significance of this novel phenotype.
• Integrated several high dimensional datasets to uncover correlations between the peripheral and tumor immune landscapes and disease status.

Portland, Oregon Area

• Project: Investigating the role of the adenosine kinase isoforms in cancer.
• Maintained breast cancer and kidney cell lines and performed gene therapy (CRISPR) experiments to introduce targeted mutations in adenosine kinase isoforms.
• Performed molecular biology experiments, western blots, and confocal microscopy to confirm mutations, and proliferation assays to assess changes in cell growth.

Corvallis, Oregon Area

• Undergraduate Research Fellow in Dr. Jadwiga Giebultowicz's LabCompleted Honors Thesis: The Effects of the Immunity Factor Relish on Aging Phenotypes in Drosophila
• Created fruit fly lines with overexpression of NF-κB homologue Relish to assess links between aging, chronic inflammation, neurodegeneration, and circadian rhythms.
• Learned to perform qRT-PCR to assess gene expression changes, behavioral assays (lifespan, locomotor activity, climbing, gut motility), and neurodegeneration assays.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Molecular Medicine And Mechanisms Of Disease, 3.80

Honors Bachelor Of Science, Microbiology, General, 3.58