Yonathan Ararso recently presented his award-winning research on immune suppression by melanoma at the 2013 Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Stamford, CT.  His poster, entitled “Melanoma-derived Factors TGFb1 and VEGF-A Suppress Anti-tumor Immunity by Interfering with Dendritic Cell Maturation and Activation” stemmed from work conducted during his Senior Honors Project in Biology under the guidance of Dr. Kristian Hargadon, Elliott Assistant Professor of Biology.  For this work, Yonathan was the recipient of the prestigious Samuel S. Jones Phi Beta Kappa Award, a $4,000 prize for the best research paper at H-SC in a given academic year.  His poster at the Leadership Symposium highlighted his findings regarding the role of two melanoma-derived factors that suppress dendritic cells, a cell type whose function is critical for the induction of anti-tumor immune responses.

In August, Yonathan will begin working in the laboratory of Dr. David Lyden at Weill Cornell Medical College.  Dr. Lyden is Stavros S. Niachos Chair and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Cell and Developmental Biology at Weill Cornell Medical Center and Pediatric Neuro-Oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His lab is currently studying how primary tumors secrete certain growth factors to prime specialized tissues and sites throughout the body, in effect creating a “metastatic niche” conducive to  tumor cell adhesion and invasion.  Yonathan also plans to apply to M.D./Ph.D. programs following this next year of research.