Summer 2025
By Kathleen Clute
Photography by Bryce Vickmark
The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant to Dana-Farber’s Judith Agudo, PhD, for her work to make cancerous tumors more susceptible to immunotherapies and to protect transplanted organs from attack by the immune system.
Agudo received a NYSCF-Robertson Stem Cell Investigator Award, which supports promising early career scientists whose cutting-edge research holds the potential to accelerate treatments and cures. She is a principal investigator in the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology.
Agudo is using her NYSCF Robertson Award for a project aimed at uncovering the mechanisms that regulate the sensitivity of distinct cells to be recognized, attacked, and killed by the immune system.
“The immune system is a major roadblock in all stem-cell-based therapies for autoimmune disease, as well as for transplantation,” said Agudo. “Identifying strategies to provide transplanted organs with the property of invisibility to the immune system is a critical unmet need in regenerative medicine.”
Deploying technology she developed to study T-cell interactions with other cells, Agudo wants to learn how some healthy cells that are naturally resistant to attack by the immune system can achieve this striking ability. This could lead to the discovery of genes or pathways that can be harnessed safely and effectively to protect transplanted tissues from rejection or to render cancerous cells more vulnerable to immunotherapy.
“My project also has implications for any regenerative approach for autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes,” said Agudo. “In diseases like this, restored cells inevitably succumb to immune attack unless the immune system is strongly suppressed. But that approach puts patients at high risk for infection and cancer.”
The NYSCF combines the depth of a highly focused disease research institute with the breadth of a wide-ranging philanthropic organization. It has invested more than $450 million in stem cell science since its founding in 2005.
“The NYSCF-Robertson Awards give researchers the flexibility to pursue their boldest ideas while connecting top minds with one another to push the entire field forward,” said Jennifer Raab, the foundation’s president and CEO. “Dr. Agudo’s pioneering work holds great promise for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases.”