Esra Akbay, Ph.D.

Undergraduate

Bilkent University (2005), Genetics

Graduate School

Univ of Tx Southwestern Med Ct (2010), Cancer Biology

• Immunotherapy
• Lung cancer development
• Metabolic regulation of host anti-tumor immune responses
• Tumor microenvironment

Featured Publications

Loss of p53 and mutational heterogeneity drives immune resistance in an autochthonous mouse lung cancer model with high tumor mutational burden.

Zhu M, Kim J, Deng Q, Ricciuti B, Alessi JV, Eglenen-Polat B, Bender ME, Huang HC, Kowash RR, Cuevas I, Bennett ZT, Gao J, Minna JD, Castrillon DH, Awad MM, Xu L, Akbay EA, Cancer Cell 2023 Sep

Tumor intrinsic and extrinsic functions of CD73 and the adenosine pathway in lung cancer.

Kowash RR, Akbay EA, Front Immunol 2023 14 1130358

Comprehensive targeting of resistance to inhibition of RTK signaling pathways by using glucocorticoids.

Gong K, Guo G, Beckley NA, Yang X, Zhang Y, Gerber DE, Minna JD, Burma S, Zhao D, Akbay EA, Habib AA, Nat Commun 2021 Dec 12 1 7014

Evasion of Innate Immunity Contributes to Small Cell Lung Cancer Progression and Metastasis.

Zhu M, Huang Y, Bender ME, Girard L, Kollipara R, Eglenen-Polat B, Naito Y, Savage TK, Huffman KE, Koyama S, Kumanogoh A, Minna JD, Johnson JE, Akbay EA, Cancer Res 2021 Jan

Characterization of the immune landscape of EGFR-mutant NSCLC identifies CD73/adenosine pathway as a potential therapeutic target.

Le X, Negrao MV, Reuben A, Federico L, Diao L, McGrail D, Nilsson M, Robichaux J, Munoz IG, Patel S, Elamin Y, Fan YH, Lee WC, Parra E, Solis Soto LM, Chen R, Li J, Karpinets T, Khairullah R, Kadara H, Behrens C, Sepesi B, Wang R, Zhu M, Wang L, Vaporiciyan A, Roth J, Swisher S, Haymaker C, Zhang J, Wang J, Wong KK, Byers LA, Bernatchez C, Zhang J, Wistuba II, Gibbons DL, Akbay EA, Heymach JV, J Thorac Oncol 2020 Dec

EGFR inhibition triggers an adaptive response by co-opting antiviral signaling pathways in lung cancer

Ke Gong, Gao Guo, Nishah Panchani, Matthew E. Bender, David E. Gerber, John D. Minna, Farjana Fattah, Boning Gao, Michael Peyton, Kemp Kernstine, Bipasha Mukherjee, Sandeep Burma, Cheng-Ming Chiang, Shanrong Zhang, Adwait Amod Sathe, Chao Xing, Kathryn H. Dao, Dawen Zhao, Esra A. Akbay & Amyn A. Habib. Nature Cancer 06 April 2020

Suppression of Myeloid Cell Arginase Activity leads to Therapeutic Response in a NSCLC Mouse Model by Activating Anti-Tumor Immunity.

Miret JJ, Kirschmeier P, Koyama S, Zhu M, Li YY, Naito Y, Wu M, Malladi VS, Huang W, Walker W, Palakurthi S, Dranoff G, Hammerman PS, Pecot CV, Wong KK, Akbay EA J Immunother Cancer 2019 Feb 7 1 32

Identification and characterization of an alternative cancer-derived PD-L1 splice variant.

Hassounah NB, Malladi VS, Huang Y, Freeman SS, Beauchamp EM, Koyama S, Souders N, Martin S, Dranoff G, Wong KK, Pedamallu CS, Hammerman PS, Akbay EA Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 2018 Dec

Polymerase-mediated ultramutagenesis in mice produces diverse cancers with high mutational load.

Li HD, Cuevas I, Zhang M, Lu C, Alam MM, Fu YX, You MJ, Akbay EA, Zhang H, Castrillon DH J. Clin. Invest. 2018 Aug 128 9 4179-4191

Autochthonous murine models for the study of smoker and never-smoker associated lung cancers.

Akbay EA, Kim J Transl Lung Cancer Res 2018 Aug 7 4 464-486

• American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
• International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)
• Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (2018)