Julia Taylor Honored with Young Investigator Award

On Friday, August 21st Kast lab member Julia Taylor was given a young investigator award at Moving Targets 2015. Julia presented a poster outlining recent work published by several members of the lab entitled “Human papillomavirus-exposed Langerhans cells are activated by stabilized Poly-I:C,” and was 1 of 3 graduate students chosen from the 44 individuals presenting work at the conference.

Taylor Poster

Julia showing off the science.

The translational science behind that poster focuses on utilizing a toll-like receptor 3 agonist to overcome immune evasion strategies employed by the Human Papillomavirus in an effort to clear ongoing or persistent infections. The lab hopes to extend this immunotherapy to woman with HPV-driven cancers with the hopes that stimulation of the immune system will result in a clearing of HPV-transformed cells.

Visual Abstract of Poster

Visual Abstract

Link to the published article
Moving Targets is a yearly research symposium organized and put on by the USC School of Pharmacy. This year’s theme was “Breakthrough Therapies in Immunology.”