Esra Akbay, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Undergraduate

Bilkent University (2005), Genetics

Graduate School

UT Southwestern Medical Center (2010), Cancer Biology

• Immunotherapy
• Lung cancer development
• Role of metabolic dysregulation in host-tumor interactions
• Tumor microenvironment

Featured Publications

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

Interleukin-17A Promotes Lung Tumor Progression Through Neutrophil Attraction to Tumor Sites and Mediating Resistance to PD-1 Blockade

Akbay EA*, Koyama S, Liu Y, Dries R, Bufe LE, Silkes M, Alam, MM, Magee DM, Jones R, Jinushi M, Kulkarni M, Carretero J, Wang X, Warner-Hatten T, Cavanaugh JD, Osa A, Kumanogoh A, Freeman GJ, Awad MM, Christiani DC, Bueno R, Hammerman PS, Dranoff G*, Wong, KK*. J Thorac Oncol 2017

STK11/LKB1 Deficiency Promotes Neutrophil Recruitment and Proinflammatory Cytokine Production to Suppress T-cell Activity in the Lung Tumor Microenvironment.

Koyama S, Akbay EA, Li YY, Aref AR, Skoulidis F, Herter-Sprie GS, Buczkowski KA, Liu Y, Awad MM, Denning WL, Diao L, Wang J, Parra-Cuentas ER, Wistuba II, Soucheray M, Thai T, Asahina H, Kitajima S, Altabef A, Cavanaugh JD, Rhee K, Gao P, Zhang H, Fecci PE, Shimamura T, Hellmann MD, Heymach JV, Hodi FS, Freeman GJ, Barbie DA, Dranoff G, Hammerman PS, Wong KK Cancer Res. 2016 Mar 76 5 999-1008

Adaptive resistance to therapeutic PD-1 blockade is associated with upregulation of alternative immune checkpoints.

Koyama S, Akbay EA, Li YY, Herter-Sprie GS, Buczkowski KA, Richards WG, Gandhi L, Redig AJ, Rodig SJ, Asahina H, Jones RE, Kulkarni MM, Kuraguchi M, Palakurthi S, Fecci PE, Johnson BE, Janne PA, Engelman JA, Gangadharan SP, Costa DB, Freeman GJ, Bueno R, Hodi FS, Dranoff G, Wong KK, Hammerman PS Nat Commun 2016 Feb 7 10501

Activation of the PD-1 pathway contributes to immune escape in EGFR-driven lung tumors.

Akbay EA, Koyama S, Carretero J, Altabef A, Tchaicha JH, Christensen CL, Mikse OR, Cherniack AD, Beauchamp EM, Pugh TJ, Wilkerson MD, Fecci PE, Butaney M, Reibel JB, Soucheray M, Cohoon TJ, Janne PA, Meyerson M, Hayes DN, Shapiro GI, Shimamura T, Sholl LM, Rodig SJ, Freeman GJ, Hammerman PS, Dranoff G, Wong KK Cancer Discov 2013 Dec 3 12 1355-63

Clinical implications of monitoring nivolumab immunokinetics in non-small cell lung cancer patients.

Osa A, Uenami T, Koyama S, Fujimoto K, Okuzaki D, Takimoto T, Hirata H, Yano Y, Yokota S, Kinehara Y, Naito Y, Otsuka T, Kanazu M, Kuroyama M, Hamaguchi M, Koba T, Futami Y, Ishijima M, Suga Y, Akazawa Y, Machiyama H, Iwahori K, Takamatsu H, Nagatomo I, Takeda Y, Kida H, Akbay EA, Hammerman PS, Wong KK, Dranoff G, Mori M, Kijima T, Kumanogoh A JCI Insight 2018 Oct 3 19

Assessing Therapeutic Efficacy of MEK Inhibition in a KRAS G12C-Driven Mouse Model of Lung Cancer.

Li S, Liu S, Deng J, Akbay EA, Hai J, Ambrogio C, Zhang L, Zhou F, Jenkins RW, Adeegbe DO, Gao P, Wang X, Paweletz CP, Herter-Sprie GS, Chen T, Gutierrez Quiceno L, Zhang Y, Merlino AA, Quinn MM, Zeng Y, Yu X, Liu Y, Fan L, Aguirre AJ, Barbie DA, Yi X, Wong KK Clin. Cancer Res. 2018 Jun

JAK2/IDH-mutant-driven myeloproliferative neoplasm is sensitive to combined targeted inhibition.

McKenney AS, Lau AN, Somasundara AVH, Spitzer B, Intlekofer AM, Ahn J, Shank K, Rapaport FT, Patel MA, Papalexi E, Shih AH, Chiu A, Freinkman E, Akbay EA, Steadman M, Nagaraja R, Yen K, Teruya-Feldstein J, Wong KK, Rampal R, Heiden MGV, Thompson CB, Levine RL J. Clin. Invest. 2018 Jan

Lkb1 inactivation drives lung cancer lineage switching governed by Polycomb Repressive Complex 2.

Zhang H, Fillmore Brainson C, Koyama S, Redig AJ, Chen T, Li S, Gupta M, Garcia-de-Alba C, Paschini M, Herter-Sprie GS, Lu G, Zhang X, Marsh BP, Tuminello SJ, Xu C, Chen Z, Wang X, Akbay EA, Zheng M, Palakurthi S, Sholl LM, Rustgi AK, Kwiatkowski DJ, Diehl JA, Bass AJ, Sharpless NE, Dranoff G, Hammerman PS, Ji H, Bardeesy N, Saur D, Watanabe H, Kim CF, Wong KK Nat Commun 2017 Apr 8 14922

• American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
• American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
• International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)