Associate Professor
Internal Medicine
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati
Dr. Trisha Wise-Draper received her bachelor's degree at Miami University and her M.D. and Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center. She is Board Certified Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.
Her laboratory focuses on translational mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and biomarkers in cancer. Many treatments for head and neck cancer (HNC), the 6th most common cancer worldwide, are toxic and result in significant morbidity. In addition, the outcomes in locally advanced HNC, especially those with high risk features and those that develop recurrence, are poor.
Therefore, using patient tissue and blood samples from clinical trials as well as established HNC cell lines, she is investigating how tumors may respond to various treatments, and the mechanisms by which tumors recur despite aggressive treatment.
Specifically, she studies mechanisms underlying resistance to immunotherapy, including T-cell dysfunction, and the potential role of NK cells and the microenvironment. The goals are to be able to better identify patients most likely to respond to treatment and to understand how to turn a non-responder into a responder to potentially design subsequent human trials that will improve immunotherapy effectiveness.