Dr. Mark Yarmarkovich leads a lab dedicated to expanding the curative potential of immunotherapies to all cancer patients. He pioneered peptide-centric (PC)-CAR T cells, enabling the precise targeting of tumor-specific drivers long considered undruggable with conventional therapies or immunotherapies (Nature 2023). This technology eradicates aggressive cancers in preclinical models and dramatically expands CAR applications across cancer types.
The first PC-CAR is being evaluated in a first-in-class clinical trial targeting a critical transcription factor that drives neuroblastoma while additional PC-CARs for other cancers are advancing toward clinical translation. The Yarmarkovich lab has developed technologies for identifying the most promising tumor-specific targets in any tumor, resulting in a comprehensive atlas of tumor targets (www.immuno-verse.com/reviewers), including those arising from the dark proteome and unexplored regions of the immunopeptidome. In parallel, hi lab is developing technologies to matched CAR receptors to these targets in a scalable manner. Together, these next-generation PC-CAR technologies aim to bring truly personalized immunotherapies within reach of every cancer patient.
Dr. Yarmarkovich is a faculty member in the Perlmutter Cancer Center at the NYU School of Medicine, co-founder of a biotechnology companies and inventor on over 15 patent filings related to immunotherapy. Dr. Yarmarkovich has received awards including the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize and the STAT Wunderkind Award.