As an ISCRM Fellow, Elisa Clark will undertake a project aimed at improving efficacy of engineered T cell therapies against solid tumors using cytokine pre-treatment. Clark will test how cytokines impact two critical but opposing aspects of T cell differentiation: stemness and effector function, and how cytokines can be combined to maximize both desired T cell properties. This work will utilize both ex vivo high throughput screening methods in collaboration with UW Genome Sciences, and in vivo mouse tumor models in collaboration with Fred Hutch Cancer Center. If successful, this work will inform cytokine effects on T cell differentiation and also generate cells for antitumor therapy in a manner that could be easily translated into clinical studies.