Curiel, Tyler J., M.D., M.P.H.

Professor and The Daisy M. Skinner President’s Chair in Cancer Immunology Research

Personal Statement:

Our research team studies the immunopathologic basis of human disease. Our goal is to define basic mechanisms of disease immunopathogenesis that can be used to understand disease development and progression, and to guide development of effective therapies for cancer, autoimmunity, infections and age-related debilities.

Education

B.S. University of Georgia
M.D. Duke University School of Medicine
M.P.H. Harvard University School of Public Health.

Research

Dr. Curiel’s initial work in human immunology focused on anti-pathogen immunity that helped to develop important research techniques and collaborations that supported current endeavors. At the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, Dr. Curiel was fortunate to get much on-the-job experience in dendritic cell biology.

These efforts grounded his work that was done at Tulane where is group extended these early dendritic efforts to include studies of dendritic cells in the tumor microenvironment, helping launch detailed studies by many investigators on tumor microenvironmental cells.

Studies extended to include tumor microenvironmental regulatory T cells (Tregs) which spawned many additional studies of their microenvironmental effects in cancer, among his most important contributions to date. The current focus is understanding immune dysregulation in cancer as a means to understand cancer immunopathogenesis and develop novel cancer immunotherapies.

Immunopathogenic pathway studies now also include immune co-signaling. We also study age effects on immunity and immunotherapy, and immunopathogenesis of autoimmune disease. Discoveries are put into clinical trials for testing. The group has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1987.

Awards & Accomplishments

Year	Name
2017	Vanguard Lecturer, American Association of Immunologists
2017	UTHSCSA Presidential Distinguished Senior Scholar Award
2016	Chairman, NIH TTT study section
2012	Consulting editor, Journal of Clinical Investigation
2005	Associate editor, Journal of Immunology
2009	San Antonio Express Business Health Journal Health Care Hero
2006	Featured Scientist, NovaNow
2005	Mauvernay Research Grand Prize, Tulane
2004	Mauvernay Research Excellence Prize, Tulane

Affiliations

Member, American Association of Immunologist (AAI)
Member, American Association for Cancer Research
Member, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting Planning Committee

Publications

Vinh Dao, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Yang Liu, Vincent Hurez, Sherry Dodds, Danielle Callaway, Aijie Liu, Paul Hasty, Zelton D. Sharp, Tyler J. Curiel. Prevention of carcinogen and inflammation-induced dermal cancer by oral rapamycin includes reducing genetic damage. Cancer Prevention Research, 2015:8(5):400-409 Accession number 25736275. PMCID 4417432

Barbara Christy, Marco Demaria, Judith Campisi, Jing Huang, Sherry G. Dodds, Charnae Williams, Diane Jones, Gene Hubbard, Carolina B. Livi, Xiaoli Gao, Susan Weintraub, Tyler J. Curiel, Z Dave Sharp, Paul Hasty. p53 and rapamycin are additive. Oncotarget, 2015;6(18):15802-13 PMCID 4599238 Accession number: 26158292

Vincent Hurez, Vinh Dao, Aijie Liu, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Jonathan Gelfond, Lishi Sun, Molly Bergman, Carlos J. Orihuela, Veronica Galvan, Álvaro Padrón, Justin Drerup, Yang Liu, Paul Hasty, Zelton Dave Sharp, Tyler J. Curiel. Chronic mTOR inhibition in mice with rapamycin alters T, B, myeloid and innate lymphoid cells and gut flora and prolongs life of immune deficient mice. Aging Cell, 2015;14(6):945-56 PMCID 4693453 Accession number 26315673

Christophe Massard, Michael S Gordon, Sunil Sharma, Saeed Rafii, Zev A Wainberg, Jason John Luke, Tyler J Curiel, Gerardo Colon-Otero, Omid Hamid, Rachel E Sanborn, Peter H ODonnell, Alexandra Drakaki, Winston Tan, John Kurland, Marlon C Rebelatto, Xiaoping Jin, Andy Blake-Haskins, Ashok Gupta, and Neil Segal. Safety and Efficacy of Durvalumab (MEDI4736), an Anti-PD-L1 Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor, in Patients with Advanced Urothelial Bladder Cancer, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2016;34:3119-25.

Bin Yuan, Long Cheng, Kshama Gupta, Huai-Chin Chiang, Harshita Gupta, Gangadhara R. Sareddy, Degeng Wang, Kate Lathrop, Richard Elledge, Pei Wang, Stanton McHardy, Ratna Vadlamudi, Tyler J. Curiel, Yanfen Hu, Qinong Ye, Rong Li. Tyrosine phosphorylation regulates ERβ ubiquitination, protein turnover, and inhibition of breast cancer. Oncotarget 2016;7:42585-97

Perales-Puchalt A, Svoronos N, Rutkowski MR, Allegrezza MJ, Tesone AJ, Payne KK, Wickramasinghe J, Nguyen JM, O’Brien SW, Cadungog M, Connolly DC, Tchou J, Curiel TJ, Conejo-Garcia JR. Follicle-stimulating hormone receptor is expressed by most ovarian cancer subtypes and is a safe and effective immunotherapeutic target. Clin. Cancer Res. DOI 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-16-0492

Vinh Dao, Yang Liu, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Robert S. Svatek, Jonathan A. Gelfond, Aijie Liu, Vincent Hurez, Tyler J. Curiel. Immune stimulatory effects of rapamycin are mediated by stimulation of antitumor γδ T cells. Cancer Res., 2016;76:5970-82

Curtis A. Clark, Harshita B. Gupta, Gangadhara Sareddy, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Shunhua Lao, Bin Yuan, Justin M. Drerup, Alvaro Padron, José Conejo-Garcia, Kruthi Murthy, Yang Liu, Mary Jo Turk, Kathrin Thedieck, Vincent Hurez, Rong Li, Ratna Vadlamudi, Tyler J. Curiel. Tumor-intrinsic PD-L1 signals regulate cell growth, pathogenesis and autophagy in ovarian cancer and melanoma. Cancer Research, 2106;76(23):6964-6974

Nikolaos Svoronos, Alfredo Perales-Puchalt, Michael J. Allegrezza, Melanie R. Rutkowski, Amelia J. Tesone, Kyle K. Payne, Jenny M. Nguyen, Tyler J. Curiel, Mark G. Cadungog, Sunil Singhal, Evgeniy B. Eruslanov, Paul Zhang, Julia Tchou, Rugang Zhang, Jose R. Conejo-Garcia. Tumor cell-independent estrogen signaling drives progression through mobilization of myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Cancer Discovery, 2017;7(1):72-85

Yang Liu, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Vinh Dao, Álvaro Padrón, Justin M. Drerup, Aijie Liu, Vincent Hurez, Tyler J. Curiel. Biphasic rapamycin effects in lymphoma and carcinoma treatment. Cancer Research, 2017;77(2):520-531. PMC5286917. Accession number 27737881.

Natasa Obermajer, Stephanie Downs-Canner, Sara Berkey, Greg Delgoffe, Robert Edwards, Tyler Curiel, Kunle Odunsi, and David Bartlett. Characterization of tumor-driven Th17-to-Treg cell transdifferentiation. Nature Comm, 2017;8:14649

Shannon M. Steinberg, Tamer B. Shabaneh, Peisheng Zhang, Viktor Martyanov, Zhenghui Li, Tamara A. Wood, Andrea Boni, Brian T. Malik, Tyler J. Curiel, Michael L. Whitfield, Mary Jo Turk. Acquired resistance to BRAF inhibitors restores immunosuppressive myeloid cells that impair immunotherapy against autochthonous mouse melanoma, Cancer Research, 2017;77(7):1599-1610. PMC5380540. Accession number 28202513.

Harshita B. Gupta, Curtis A. Clark, Bin Yuan, Gangadhara Sareddy, Srilakshmi Pandeswara, Alvaro S. Padron, Vincent Hurez, José Conejo-Garcia, Ratna Vadlamudi, Rong Li, Tyler J. Curiel. Tumor intrinsic PD-L1 promotes tumor initiating cell generation and functions, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, in press

Jinyou Liu, Suryavathi Viswanadhapalli, Lauren Garcia, Mei Zhou, Edward Kost, Rajeshwar Rao Tekmal, Rong Li, Manjeet K Rao, Tyler J. Curiel, Ratna K Vadlamudi, Gangadhara R. Sareddy. Therapeutic utility of natural estrogen receptor beta agonists on ovarian cancer. Oncotarget, in press

Xiaowen Zhang, Huai-Chin Chiang, Yao Wang, Chi Zhang, Sabrina Smith, Xiayan Zhao, Sreejith Nair, Joel Michalek, Ismail Jatoi, Meeghan Lautner, Boyce Oliver, Howard Wang, Anna Petit, Teresa Soler, Joan Brunet, Francesca Mateo, Miguel Angel Pujana, Elizabeth Poggi, Krysta Chaldekas, Claudine Isaacs, Beth N. Peshkin, Oscar Ochoa, Frederic Chedin, Constantine Theoharis, Lu-Zhe Sun, Tyler J. Curiel, Richard Elledge, Victor X. Jin, Yanfen Hu, Rong Li. Attenuation of RNA polymerase II pausing mitigates BRCA1-associated R-loop accumulation and tumorigenesis. Nature Communications, in press