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Location

Texas Medical Center

Specialty
Cancer
Phone: 832-822-4840
Fax: 832-825-4732
Email

mghegde@texaschildrens.org

Address

1102 Bates Ave., Ste. 1570
Houston, TX 77030

Meenakshi G. Hegde, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Hematology/Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine

Education

School Education Degree Year
Baylor College of Medicine Fellowship Pediatric Hematology/Oncology 2012
University of Illinois at Chicago, Corner Children's Hospital Residency Pediatrics 2009
Bangalore Medical College, India Internship/Residency Pediatrics 2005
J.S.S. Medical College, Mysore, India Medical School Doctor of Medicine 2003

About

Dr. Meenakshi Hegde is a pediatric oncologist engaged in translational research on immunotherapy to improve patient outcomes in high-risk cancer. Her research was the first to demonstrate that a highly heterogeneous landscape of antigen expression in glioblastoma and other solid tumors benefitted from simultaneous targeting of these antigens using a novel bispecific CAR T-cell (TanCAR).

Her current efforts focus on the tumor complex rather than the tumor cell to develop effective T-cell based platform resistant to the inhibitory pathways within the tumor environment and  translation of newly developed cellular therapies from the laboratory to clinic through well-designed clinical trials to shape standard of care practices in the field of high-risk cancer therapy. Her clinical interests span adoptive cellular therapy and bone marrow transplant.

Dr. Hegde is a member of the Brain Tumor Research Program at Texas Children's Cancer Center, the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, and the Bone Marrow / Stem Cell Transplant Program.

She is a board certified physician-specialist in pediatric hematology/oncology and a member of the American Board of Pediatrics.

Board Certifications
American Board of Pediatrics
American Board of Pediatrics - Pediatric Hematology/Oncology

Organizations

Organization Name Role
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
Member
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Member
American Society of Bone Marrow Transplant (ASBMT) Member
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Member
Children's Oncology Group (COG) Member
Karnataka Medical Council, India Member
Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Member

Research Statement

Solid tumors enable immune evasion by expressing high-levels of immune-inhibitory ligands that attenuate anti-tumor responses by inducing functional exhaustion and apoptotic death of the activated tumor-antigen specific T cells. Programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1; B7-H1)/ programmed death protein-1 (PD-1; CD279) immune-checkpoint is a key mediator of this tumor-derived immune-inhibition.

Using a glioma model, we are currently investigating how PD-L1/PD-1 axis can be best manipulated to enhance the anti-tumor efficacy of adoptively transferred chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.

Our approach will create a broad T-cell engineering platform to modulate tumor derived immune-inhibitory signals for improved cellular therapy of solid tumors.

Learn more about the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy on BCM.edu

Awards & Honors

2020    Young Investigator Award, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine
Team Science Award, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Schwiesguth Prize, International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP)
2014     Young Investigator Award, American Society of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology (ASPHO)
2012     Hyundai Hope on Wheels Scholar

Language

English



* Texas Children's Hospital physicians' licenses and credentials are reviewed prior to practicing at any of our facilities. Sections titled From the Doctor, Professional Organizations and Publications were provided by the physician's office and were not verified by Texas Children's Hospital.