Kenneth Austin

Kenneth Austin

Biography

Kenneth Austin is a rising senior Biology major with a Psychology minor at Hampton
University, where he serves as President of the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students
and is a published first-author researcher in the Chakafana Lab. His research focuses on
developing innovative combination therapies for cancer through translational biomedical
research. Kenneth has conducted research at the Dartmouth Cancer Center investigating
strategies to overcome radiation resistance in glioblastoma and is currently a research intern
in the DeKosky Lab at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. Here, he contributes
to the development of high-throughput platforms for screening novel T-cell-engaging
immunotherapies. Beyond research, he is a long-term volunteer with Hampton University’s
TRiO Upward Bound program, mentoring high schoolers and supporting college readiness.
Kenneth’s long-term goal is to become a physician-scientist through an MD/PhD program,
translating discoveries from the clinic and laboratory into novel cancer therapies that improve
patient outcomes.

Characterizing Screening Parameters for T Cell Engager Discovery
Kenneth Austin1, Julian Rojo Gallegos2 and Brandon DeKosky3
1Department of Biological Sciences, Hampton University
2Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
T cell engagers (TCEs) are a novel class of cancer immunotherapy that has led to long-term
remission in a subset of blood cancers and is promising in solid tumors. TCEs are bispecific
antibodies with two distinct binding arms: one that binds to T cells, and the other that binds to
a tumor-associated antigen on cancer cells, ultimately leading to cancer cell death. However,
identifying novel TCEs is difficult because individual molecules need to be tested one by one,
a process that is laborious and time intensive. As such, we have developed a high-throughput,
function-first screening platform that links TCE phenotype with genotype. The pipeline will
encapsulate reporter, target, and secretor cells within microfluidic droplets for an incubation
period, break the droplets, and then analyze the cells with flow cytometry for activation
markers. We will first use positive and negative control cells in well plate experiments to
determine assay parameters. Once these parameters have been defined, we will screen a
synthetic TCE library to assess our assay’s performance. We anticipate this platform will
enable high-throughput identification of functional TCEs, establishing a scalable strategy for
screening TCE libraries for novel cancer immunotherapies.