Alice Kao

Program: Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Current advisor: David G. DeNardo, PhD

Undergraduate university: National Cheng Kung University, 2019

Enrollment year: 2022

Research summary
Explore immune tumor microenvironment in primary and metastatic pancreatic cancer

My research focuses on immune landscape difference between primary and metastatic liver and lung tissues in human samples. I utilized tools such as single cell RNA seq, multiplex IHC and spatial transcriptomics to explore the suppressive mechanisms in liver metastasis specifically, with primarily focus on the interplay between macrophages, fibroblasts and T cells.

Graduate publications
Hogg GD, Weinstein AG, Kingston NL, Liu X, Dres OM, Kang LI, Lander VE, Kao YL, Ahmad F, Knolhoff BL, Shenoy VV, Sells B, Jayasinghe RG, Houston A, Liu T, Herndon JM, Murphy KM, Ding L, Fields RC, Panni RZ, Hawkins WG, DeNardo DG. 2025 Combined Flt3L and CD40 agonism restores dendritic cell-driven T cell immunity in pancreatic cancer. Sci Immunol, 10(110):eadp3978. PMCID:

Liu X, Baer JM, Stone ML, Knolhoff BL, Hogg GD, Turner MC, Kao YL, Weinstein AG, Ahmad F, Chen J, Schmidt AD, Klomp JA, Coho H, Coho KS, Coma S, Pachter JA, Bryant KL, Kang LI, Lim KH, Beatty GL, DeNardo DG. 2024 Stromal reprogramming overcomes resistance to RAS-MAPK inhibition to improve pancreas cancer responses to cytotoxic and immune therapy. Sci Transl Med, 16(770):eado2402. PMCID: PMC12376167