Gabriel Ascui-Gac

I am a fourth year PhD student in Biomedical Sciences. I got my undergraduate degree at the University of Chile in Molecular Biotechnology. I currently work at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the lab of Mitchell Kronenberg studying Mucosal-associated invariant T cells in the context of bacterial infections. I am currently working in an in vivo CRISPR screen to determine if MAIT cells are capable of generating immunological memory and which genes drive this program. Innate T cells like MAIT cells and iNKT cells are a growing family of donor-unrestricted T cells that have been proposed as an ideal target for both vaccine development and cancer immunotherapy, as they recognized antigens that do not cross-react between individual and could be used for off-the shelf adoptive transfer therapies. I feel extremely honored to receive the ARCS Foundation Award. This award will be very significant to me as I will be able to remain financially stable while I complete my PhD and will allow me to focus on my research rather than worrying about financial burdens of being a graduate student.