Chao Wang, PhD

Dr. Wang’s research focuses on understanding and overcoming mechanisms of resistance to adoptive cell therapies in cancer. His laboratory investigates the dynamic interactions between heterogeneous tumors and infused immune cells to uncover how cancers evade immunotherapy. Leveraging these insights, his team engineers next-generation immune cells with enhanced tumor specificity, functionality, and persistence to improve the effectiveness and durability of cancer treatment. Dr. Wang’s work has been published in leading journals, including Nature Medicine and Nature Cancer.

Associations

• Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy

Dr. Wang’s research focuses on defining and overcoming mechanisms of resistance to adoptive cell therapies in cancer. His laboratory develops integrated platforms to identify tumor antigens recognized by therapeutic T cells and to discover the corresponding antigen-specific receptors. Working closely with clinical collaborators, his team investigates how tumor-reactive immune cells interact with heterogeneous tumors and the surrounding tumor microenvironment during therapy. These studies provide mechanistic insights into immune escape and treatment failure, which guide the development of next-generation cell therapies. By enhancing tumor antigen presentation and immune recognition, Dr. Wang’s laboratory engineers more potent and durable cell products with improved antitumor activity and persistence in patients.

• Chao Wang, Carlos M. Moran Segura, Saeed Lamees, Jonathan Nguyen, MacLean H all, Xiaoqing Yu, Amer A. Beg, Shari Pilon-Thomas, Ben Creelan. Adoptive cell therapy using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes induces impairment of tumor-infiltrating B cells in patient research biopsies. J Immunol. 2025 Nov.214(S1):vkaf283.456.
• Wang C, Yu X, Teer JK, Yao J, Du D, Liu X, Thompson ZJ, Wang MH, Welsh EA, Memon D, Chan TA, Makarov V, Anadon CM, Saeed L, Boyle TA, Fang B, Koomen JM, Cox C, Landin AM, Yoder SJ, Kim S, Chen DT, Pilon-Thomas SA, Conejo-Garcia JR, Antonia SJ, Haura EB, Creelan BC. Impaired T cell and neoantigen retention in time-serial analysis of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer in patients unresponsive to TIL cell therapy. Nat Cancer. 2025 May.6(5):801-819. Pubmedid: 40341231. Pmcid: PMC12987398.
• , . Resistance to TIL therapy in lung cancer mediated by clonal T cell loss and neoantigen escape. Nat Cancer. 2025 May.6:749-750. Pubmedid: 40399508.
• Rossetti RAM, Tordesillas L, Beatty MS, Cianne J, Martinez Planes E, Du D, Snedal S, Wang C, Perez BA, Berglund A, Chen YA, Sarnaik A, Mulé JJ, Creelan B, Pilon-Thomas S, Abate-Daga D. CD40L stimulates tumor-infiltrating B-cells and improves ex vivo TIL expansion. J Immunother Cancer. 2025 Apr.13(4). Pubmedid: 40199608. Pmcid: PMC11979601.
• Mountzios G, Naidoo J, Wang C, Creelan BC, Trotier DC, Campbell TC, Peters S. Beyond Chemoimmunotherapy in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: New Frontiers, New Challenges. Am Soc Clin Oncol Educ Book. 2024 Jun.44(3):e432526. Pubmedid: 38781566.
• A. Neeser, R. Ramasubramanian, C. Wang, L. Ma. Engineering enhanced chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy for solid tumors. Immuno-Oncology and Technology. 2023 Sep.19:100385.
• Creelan BC, Wang C, Teer JK, Toloza EM, Yao J, Kim S, Landin AM, Mullinax JE, Saller JJ, Saltos AN, Noyes DR, Montoya LB, Curry W, Pilon-Thomas SA, Chiappori AA, Tanvetyanon T, Kaye FJ, Thompson ZJ, Yoder SJ, Fang B, Koomen JM, Sarnaik AA, Chen DT, Conejo-Garcia JR, Haura EB, Antonia SJ. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte treatment for anti-PD-1-resistant metastatic lung cancer: a phase 1 trial. Nat Med. 2021 Aug.27(8):1410-1418. Pubmedid: 34385708. Pmcid: PMC8509078.
• Chao Wang, Ligang Ming, Lijun Jia, Qi Wang, Tingting Cao, Liping Wang, Zijing Zhou, Dan Tong, Wei Li, Yiqing Wu, Hong Ding, Di Liu, Minghui Zhang. A Preliminary Retrospective and Prospective Cohort Study on a Traditional Chinese Long-term Extreme Fasting. medRxiv. 2020 Mar.
• Ben Creelan, Chao Wang, Jamie Teer, Eric Toloza, John Mullinax, Leighann Montoya, Ana Marie Landin, Tawee Tavetyanon, Bin Fang, Zachary Thompson, Xiaoping Yu, Andreas Saltos, Dung-Tsa Chen, Jose Conejo-Garcia, Eric Haura, Scott Antonia. Durable complete responses to adoptive cell transfer using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): A phase I trial. AACR Annual Meeting 2020. 2020.2020 Aug.80(S16):CT056.
• Chao Wang, Jamie Teer, Jiqiang Yao, Carmen Anadon, David Noyes, Ana Landin, Xiaoqing Yu, Dongliang Du, Zachary Thompson, Bin Fang, John Koomen, Sungjune Kim, Shari Pilon-Thomas, Dung-Tsa Chen, Jose Conejo-Garcia, Scott Antonia, Eric Haura, Ben Creelan. Both tumor intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to TIL resistance in lung cancer patients. 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2020). 2020.2020.8.
• Wang C, Li Z, Zhu Z, Chai Y, Wu Y, Yuan Z, Chang Z, Wang Z, Zhang M. Allogeneic dendritic cells induce potent antitumor immunity by activating KLRG1+CD8 T cells. Sci Rep. 2019 Oct.9(1):15527. Pubmedid: 31664180. Pmcid: PMC6820535.
• Li Z, Wu Y, Wang C, Zhang M. Mouse CD8+NKT-like cells exert dual cytotoxicity against mouse tumor cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Cancer Immunol Immun. 2019 Aug.68(8):1303-1315. Pubmedid: 31278476. Pmcid: PMC6682577.
• Chao Wang, Jamie Teer, Jiqiang Yao, Carmen Anadon Galindo, David Noyes, Eric Toloza, John Mullinax, Ana Landin, Jhanelle Grey, Tawee Tanvetyanon, Andreas Saltos, Linda Kelley, Bin Fang, John Koomen, Amod Sarnaik, Sungjune Kim, Shari Pilon-Thomas, Jose Conejo-Garcia, Eric Haura, Ben Creelan, Scott Antonia. Clinical response to Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL) in stage 4 Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) correlates with Neoantigen-Specificity: a phase I trial. 34th Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2019). 2019.2019.
• Ma H, Chen S, He Y, Huang J, Xu Y, Wang C, Lei C, Lu T, Xiao S, Mao J, Xu Y, Guo H, Li B, Zhang M, He X. Redirecting T cells to glypican-3 with 28.41BB.ζ and 28.ζ-41BBL CARs for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment. Protein Cell. 2018 Jul.9(7):664-669. Pubmedid: 29143211. Pmcid: PMC6019662.
• Wang Q, He H, Chen D, Wang C, Xu Y, Song W. Hepatic stroma-educated regulatory DCs suppress CD8+ T cell proliferation in mice. Oncotarget. 2017 Nov.8(55):93414-93425. Pubmedid: 29212160. Pmcid: PMC5706806.
• Wang C, Liu X, Li Z, Chai Y, Jiang Y, Wang Q, Ji Y, Zhu Z, Wan Y, Yuan Z, Chang Z, Zhang M. CD8(+)NKT-like cells regulate the immune response by killing antigen-bearing DCs. Sci Rep. 2015 Sep.5:14124. Pubmedid: 26369936. Pmcid: PMC4569892.
• Zhong K, Song W, Wang Q, Wang C, Liu X, Chen D, Zhu Z, Wu Y, Zhang W, Zhang M. Murine myeloid dendritic cells that phagocytose apoptotic T cells inhibit the immune response via NO. PLoS One. 2013 May.7(11):e49378. Pubmedid: 23166651. Pmcid: PMC3499560.
• Jia D, Rao W, Wang C, Jin C, Wang S, Chen D, Zhang M, Guo J, Chang Z, Liu J. Inhibition of B16 murine melanoma metastasis and enhancement of immunity by fever-range whole body hyperthermia. Int J Hyperthermia. 2011.27(3):275-285. Pubmedid: 21501029.
• Bai B, Song W, Ji Y, Liu X, Tian L, Wang C, Chen D, Zhang X, Zhang M. Microglia and microglia-like cell differentiated from DC inhibit CD4 T cell proliferation. PLoS One. 2009 Nov.4(11):e7869. Pubmedid: 19924241. Pmcid: PMC2773419.