Annamarie Allnutt

Bio:

I graduated from UC San Diego in 2017 with a B.S. in Physiology and Neuroscience. During my undergraduate years I worked in the biopharmaceutical industry and assisted in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic studies. After graduating, I moved to Los Angeles and worked in the medical field for two years before returning to the laboratory. For the past two and a half years, I have worked as a Research Associate at Saint John’s Cancer Institute (formally John Wayne Cancer Institute) in the Translational Neurosciences and Neurotherapeutics department where I study glioblastoma, grade IV brain cancer. My prior projects include assisting in the development of temozolomide analogs, investigating IFNγ driven resistance mechanisms to immune-checkpoint blockade, and developing a cytotoxic T-cell assay that recapitulates the features of the dendritic cell vaccine immunotherapy approach in vitro. I am passionate about continuing my studies on brain tumors and am excited about a variety of topics including mitigating tumor-microenvironment driven immunosuppression via immunotherapy, characterizing and targeting glioma stem-cells, and targeting glioma-specific metabolic vulnerabilities. Lately, I have also been intrigued by tumor-associated reactive astrocytes and the role they may play in glioblastoma. When I am not in the lab, I am likely playing videogames, practicing electric guitar, at a rock concert, or exploring the national parks.