Robert Holt

Areas of interest

The main focus in our lab (located at the BC Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre) is understanding and potentiating the anti-cancer immune response. Increasingly cancer is being seen as a disease of immune failure, and in the field considerable effort is being focused on evoking and/or potentiating anti-tumor immunity. In our group, we are taking many approaches in both patient and animal studies to isolate and expand tumor-specific T cells, and to genetically engineer them for improved efficacy. We also develop high-throughput genomic, proteomic and bioinformatic methods to probe the cellular immune system, with a focus on antigen discovery. In addition to immunology, we also touch on aspects of microbiome research, brain research and evolutionary biology in our group.