Alena Gros
agros@vhio.net
Current position
- Group Leader of VHIO´s Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Group
Academic Qualifications
- 2016-Ongoing: Miguel Servet I Investigator
- 2014-2016: Research Fellow at the Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (PI: Steven A. Rosenberg M.D., Ph.D.), USA
- 2009-2014: Cancer Research Training Award Fellow at the Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (PI: Steven A. Rosenberg M.D., Ph.D.), USA
- 2009: PhD in Genetics at the University of Barcelona, Spain
- 2003-2009: Undergraduate Student at the Catalan Institute of Oncology, Duran i Reynals Hospital, Barcelona, Spain (PI: Ramon Alemany)
- 2003-Degree in Biological Sciences by the University of Barcelona
Areas of Research
- Mechanisms influencing response, resistance and toxicity of cancer immunotherapies
- Naturally occurring T cell responses to cancer
- Development of novel personalized T cell therapies for cancer treatment
Prizes and Scholarships
- Cancer Research Training Award Fellowship recipient (2009-2014)
- National Cancer Institute Fellows Award for Research Excellence 2015 recipient
- CCR Federal Technology Transfer Award 2015
- Miguel Servet I Fellowship Award, Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo
Projects
- Grantor: Miguel Servet (Type 1).
Title: Characterization of neoantigen-specific T cells and identification of predictive biomarkers of response in patients with MSI and MSI-like CRC treated with anti-PDL1. - Grantor: Instituto de Salud Carlos III.
Title: Identificación de antígenos tumorales no canónicos y análisis de su relevancia en la inmunoterapia del cáncer. - Grantor: Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer – AECC (Lab AECC).
Title: Identification of biomarkers of response to cancer immunotherapy in liquid biopsies. - Grantor: Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer – AECC (Ideas Semilla).
Title: Identification of the personalized repertoire of immunogenic tumor rejection epitopes. - Grantor: EMD Serono (Grant for Oncology Innovation).
Title: Personalized non-invasive T-cell therapies targeting the mutanome - Grantor: Fundación Fero (Beca Fero)
Title: Non-invasive personalized T-cell therapies targeting recurrent hot spot driver mutations in cancer. - Grantor: Fundación BBVA.
Alena Gros is a member of our VHIO-BBVA Foundation’s Immunotherapy & Immunology Program (CAIMI).
Most relevant scientific publications
- Lozano-Rabella M, Gros A. TCR Repertoire Changes during TIL Expansion: Clonal Selection or Drifting? Clin Cancer Res. 2020 Aug 15;26(16):4177-4179.
- Gros A, Tran E, Parkhurst MR, Ilyas S, Pasetto A, Groh EM, Robbins PF, Yossef R, Garcia-Garijo A, Fajardo CA, Prickett TD, Jia L, Gartner JJ, Ray S, Ngo L, Wunderllich JR, Yang JC, Rosenberg SA. Recognition of human gastrointestinal cancer neoantigens by circulating PD-1+ lymphocytes. J Clin Invest. 2019 Nov 1;129(11):4992-5004.
- Garcia-Garijo A, Fajardo CA, Gros A. Determinants for Neoantigen Identification. Front Immunol. 2019 Jun 24;10:1392.
- R. Eil, S.K. Vodnala, D. Clever, C.A. Klebanoff, M.Sukumar, J.H. Pan, D.C. Palmer, A. Gros, T.N. Yamamoto, S.J. Patel, G.C. Guittard, Z. Yu, V. Carbonaro, K. Okkenhaug, D.S. Schrump, W.M. Linehan, R. Roychoudhuri, N.P. Restifo. Ionic immune suppression within the tumour microenvironment limits T cell effector function, Nature, 14 (2016) 539-543.
- A. Pasetto, A. Gros, P.F. Robbins, D.C. Deniger, R.D. Prickett, R. Matus-Nicodemos, D.C. Douek, B. Howie, H. Robins, M.R. Parkhurst, J. Gartner, K. Trebska-McGowan, J.S. Crystal, S.A. Rosenberg. Tumor- and Neoantigen-reactive T-cell receptors can be identified based on their frequency in fresh tumor.Cancer Immunol 2 (2016) 734-743.
- A. Gros, M.R. Parkhurst, E. Tran, A. Pasetto, P.F. Robbins, S. Ilyas, T.D. Prickett, J.J. Gartner, J.S. Crystal, I.M. Roberts, K. Trebska-McGowan, J.R. Wunderlich, J.C. Yang, S.A. Rosenberg, Prospective identification of neoantigen-specific lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of melanoma patients, Nat Med, 22 (2016) 433-438.
- E. Tran, M. Ahmadzadeh, Y.C. Lu, A. Gros, S. Turcotte, P.F. Robbins, J.J. Gartner, Z. Zheng, Y.F. Li, S. Ray, J.R. Wunderlich, R.P. Somerville, S.A. Rosenberg, Immunogenicity of somatic mutations in human gastrointestinal cancers, Science, 350 (2015) 1387-1390
- S. Turcotte, A. Gros, E. Tran, C.C. Lee, J.R. Wunderlich, P.F. Robbins, S.A. Rosenberg, Tumor-Reactive CD8+ T Cells in Metastatic Gastrointestinal Cancer Refractory to Chemotherapy, Clin Cancer Res, 20 (2014) 331-343.
- E. Tran, S. Turcotte, A. Gros, P.F. Robbins, Y.C. Lu, M.E. Dudley, J.R. Wunderlich, R.P. Somerville, K. Hogan, C.S. Hinrichs, M.R. Parkhurst, J.C. Yang, S.A.
- Rosenberg, Cancer immunotherapy based on mutation-specific CD4+ T cells in a patient with epithelial cancer, Science, 344 (2014) 641-645.
- A. Gros, P.F. Robbins, X. Yao, Y.F. Li, S. Turcotte, E. Tran, J.R. Wunderlich, A. Mixon, S. Farid, M.E. Dudley, K. Hanada, J.R. Almeida, S. Darko, D.C. Douek, J.C. Yang, S.A. Rosenberg, PD-1 identifies the patient-specific CD8(+) tumor-reactive repertoire infiltrating human tumors, J Clin Invest, 124 (2014) 2246-2259.
