Texas Children's

bio

bio

Meenakshi Hegde is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hegde completed her residency training at University of Illinois in Chicago followed by fellowship in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hegde is a physician-scientist with primary research focus on understanding the tumor adaptations and endogenous immune reactivity in response to CAR T-cell therapy with the intent to develop novel platforms for effectively targeting tumor-intrinsic escape and immune-inhibitory mechanisms for therapeutic applications. Her research findings to date have demonstrated that the landscape of antigen expression in glioblastoma and other solid tumors is highly heterogeneous, and that simultaneous targeting of these antigens improves tumor control by offsetting antigen escape. Dr. Hegde’s work was instrumental in developing multispecific CAR T cells for which she has received several fellowship and early career awards including the Schwiesguth Prize by the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP) and Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology (ASPHO). Dr. Hegde’s clinical work spans translating new cellular therapies from the laboratory to the patients and rational development of combinatorial approaches for children with aggressive sarcomas and brain tumors.