Veronica Rosselli

Master’s Student
veronica.rosselli@icahn.mssm.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research Interests

My research seeks to improve the translational potential of Newcastle Disease Virus
(NDV) onco-immunotherapy. The main focus of my studies is to develop novel NDV-
based therapeutics designed to counteract tumor immune escape driven by non-
resolving inflammatory responses. Taking advantage of the pre-existing immunity
against different human pathogens, present in the general population, my work
focuses in re-directing these responses to the tumor site. By engineering
recombinant NDVs able to express strong and highly conserved antigens, already
familiar to the host, we could increase the immunogenicity of cold tumors, revealing
the malignancy to the immune system and recruiting adaptive immune cells to the
tumor microenvironment. This approach aims to facilitate the proper
engagement between the innate inflammatory response lead by NDV and the
adaptive cells necessary to confer cancer cell death and long-term protection from
relapse.

Immunofluorescence staining. Recombinant LaSota-L289A NDV infecting Green African Monkey kidney epithelial cells (VERO). Viral proteins detected using polyclonal NDV antiserum; secondary staining performed with Alexa/488, nucleus staining in blue with DAPI