06/10/2026
– we are excited to highlight Vincent Lok of University of South Florida, recipient of an MRF Medical Student Award, with funding support provided in Honor of Christopher Westdyk.
Vincent’s research project entitled, “Targeting Melanoma with iNKT-Enhanced Dendritic Cell Immunotherapy,” focuses on harnessing lipid-based antigens to empower antitumor immune responses.
Of his work, Vincent offers, “Although melanoma can initially respond to targeted therapies and immunotherapies, achieving durable remission while balancing toxicities remains a significant challenge. Long-term tumor control depends on the immune system’s ability to recognize tumor-specific antigens and maintain effective immune surveillance. Dendritic cells are specialized antigen-presenting cells that can prime and direct these immune responses, and our recent work has demonstrated that direct injection of dendritic cells pulsed with lipid antigens can induce durable tumor regression across multiple tumor types. With support from the MRF Medical Student Award, my research aims to determine how lipid antigens activate invariant natural killer T cells to enhance overall immune activity and target immunosuppressive cells within the tumor microenvironment. Ultimately, we hope to demonstrate a safe and effective strategy to reinvigorate antitumor immunity in patients.”
To learn more about Vincent’s work, click here: https://melanoma.org/news-press/research-grant/targeting-melanoma-with-inkt-enhanced-dendritic-cell-immunotherapy/
