University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California, United States
Dr. Okada is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Trained as a physician-scientist, Dr. Okada has been dedicated to understanding the immune mechanisms in brain tumors and developing novel immunotherapy strategies for brain tumor patients for over 25 years. His team was the first to discover cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes in glioma-associated antigens. Dr. Okada also found critical roles for the integrin receptor very late activation antigen (VLA)-4 and the chemokine CXCL10 in facilitating the entry of CTLs to the brain tumor site. Dr. Okada has translated these discoveries and developed a total of 8 investigational new drug (IND) applications that the FDA approved for early-phase clinical trials, including genetically engineered glioma vaccines and T cell receptor (TCR)- or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-transduced T cell therapy in both adult and pediatric patients. One of his vaccine studies evaluating the H3.3K27M mutation-derived neoantigen (NCT02960230) is open at 14 international sites. In addition, Dr. Okada has developed a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)vIII, which has been evaluated in patients with EGFRvIII+ GBM. Recently, Dr. Okada developed a novel synNotch-primed CAR system with Dr. Wendell Lim to overcome the antigen-heterogeneity, off-tumor toxicity, and T-cell exhaustion issues. Dr. Okada’s team has also pioneered discoveries of novel immunoregulatory mechanisms in gliomas, such as one mediated by myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) and mutations of the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)1 and IDH2. As a thought leader, to improve radiologic evaluation criteria for patients undergoing immunotherapy, Dr. Okada led an international group of brain tumor immunotherapy experts to develop novel iRANO criteria. Dr. Okada is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2010-present), an honored society for physicians who promote laboratory science to the clinic.
