Vanderbilt University
Nashville, United States
Dr. Todd Bartkowiak, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is an NIH National Cancer Institute K00 Fellow interested in understanding the complex interplay between tumor initiation and growth in the brain, and the anti-tumor immune response. Currently, Dr. Bartkowiak's research focuses on how regional tumor position of glioblastomas growing in the brain impacts the anti-tumor immune response. Using cutting-edge multi-dimensional single-cell mass cytometry (CyTOF) and advanced dimensionality reduction tools combined with mutliplex immunohistochemistry (MxIHC) and state-of-the-art machien learning, Dr. Bartkowiak has uncovered critical distinctions in the immune microenvironment of human glioblastomas contacting the ventricular neural stem cell niche (C-GBM) compared to patients whose tumors are not contacting this niche (NC-GBM). Notably, lymphocytes and microglial cells are enriched in NC-GBM, whereas peripheral macrophages are and exhausted T cells are enriched in C-GBM. Using mxIHC we are currently defining how the relative spatial positions of immune cells in tumors may be influenced by ventricle contact. Of note, Dr. Bartkowiak hopes to translate these findings into meaningful immune-targeted therapies for patients with glioblastoma and potentially patients with other neurological tumors.