Timothy M. Kuzel, MD

Research Program

• Translational Research in Malignancy (TRIM)

Email

t-kuzel( at )northwestern.edu

Cancer-Focused Research

I have focused my career on the design and execution of clinical trials with a specific focus on experimental therapeutics, especially phase I and phase II therapeutics rationally designed to exploit molecular and/or protein alterations within tumor cells and immunotherapeutic approaches/agents. The goal of these trials and research is to improve clinical outcomes in renal cell cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma and other skin cancers, and CTCL. A number of these trials have been phase I or translational correlative phase II studies. Several of these have led to FDA approved pharmaceutical products. Agents utilized have included chemotherapy drugs, targeted agents, cytokines, vaccines, and other novel immunotherapeutics. I also have developed an interest in the use of bioinformatics to understand tumor biology and lead to therapeutic insights.
Examples of translational research have included 1) novel uses of cytokines, 2) MDSCs and their function and impact on tumor control, and 3) cellular therapeutic developments of chimeric antigen T-cell therapy of prostate cancer, and nanoparticles for immunostimulation. These investigations all serve to refine immunotherapy to overcome the suppressive nature of the tumor microenvironment.