Jaehyuk Choi, M.D., Ph.D., a physician-scientist whose discoveries have transformed the field of cancer immunology, has begun his new role as the inaugural Director of the Center for Cellular Therapies and Cancer Immunology in the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern. He also serves as Vice Chair for Translational Research and Innovation in the Department of Dermatology.

Dr. Choi came to UTSW from the Feinberg School of Medicine – Northwestern University, where he was Associate Professor in the Departments of Dermatology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics. His research utilizes genomic and computational approaches to elucidate the molecular and cellular defects in cancer and autoimmune disease. Dr. Choi’s recent discoveries into the superpowers acquired by T cells in T-cell lymphomas could lead to enhanced cellular therapies for solid tumors – “living drugs” that could offer new hope for patients with currently incurable cancers.

This new Center at UTSW will house a multidisciplinary program with an initial focus on solid tumors. As its Director, Dr. Choi will identify new lead candidates for cell therapies developed in his laboratory or by others at UT Southwestern that would provide the basis for first-in-human clinical trials in solid tumors. He will also develop collaborative initiatives between laboratory-based researchers and clinical investigators, particularly in the Department of Dermatology.

After completing undergraduate studies in biochemistry at Harvard University, Dr. Choi earned his medical degree and Ph.D. in immunobiology from Yale University School of Medicine. He then completed an internship in internal medicine, a residency in dermatology, and a fellowship in genetics research before securing his first faculty position, all at Yale.

Dr. Choi has been recognized with honors that include a Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award (2016), the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award (2017), and the Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award (2022). He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Dermatological Association as well as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Center Times Plus spoke with Dr. Choi about his background, research, and vision for the future.

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Why open this Center now?

When I was in medical school in the late 1990s, researchers thought that the immune system could fight only some small, specific subsets of cancer. But that changed completely over the next decade with the development of biologic antibodies that could target proteins on immune cell surfaces. These antibody drugs, which started getting approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2011, can cure patients with otherwise fatal cancers. We now know that cancer cannot be explained without understanding how it interacts with the immune system. We think most patients’ immune systems can recognize cancer but aren’t strong enough to kill it. Our goal at the new Center is to enhance immune cells so they can selectively kill cancer cells while being strong enough to withstand cancer’s defenses, creating not only a cure but long-lived immunity against cancer.

What are your greatest scientific accomplishments?

One of our most important discoveries focuses on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, a treatment in which a patient’s own immune cells are engineered in a lab to fight their specific cancers. This therapy has had great success in treating blood and bone marrow cancers but not solid tumor cancers, which comprise 90% of cancers. The defenses that solid tumors put in place exhaust CAR-T cells so that they aren’t able to attack these cancers effectively. Over the past several years, my colleagues and I studied mutations in T-cell lymphomas – cancers that originate in T cells – looking for those that might strengthen CAR-T cells against solid tumors. Last year, we reported a mutation that made CAR-T cells 100 times stronger at fighting tumors, including skin, lung, and stomach tumors in mice.

What are you hoping this research will provide to patients?

We’d like to translate this finding into first-in-human clinical trials at UT Southwestern. The bottom line is that I want to give patients hope. Nearly everyone has been affected by cancer in loved ones. It affects all of us – from kids to the elderly. It’s an incredibly emotional diagnosis, and one associated with a potentially tough road just getting through treatment. I think about patients who are told that their disease is not curable, and I want to give them a possibility to change that by developing new medicines. It’s a dream come true to be able to do this at UT Southwestern.