Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
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Clare Murray

M.D./Ph.D. Student

Clare is a student in the South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD program) who recently completed her PhD studying cancer immunology under the mentorship of Tyler Curiel, MD, MPH. For her research, Clare studied the novel biology of tumor-intrinsic PDL1 signals that promote therapy resistance and developed pharmacologic tumor PDL1-depleting drugs as a translational method to inhibit these signals and sensitize tumors to therapies. Dr. Curiel and Clare worked to move these drugs into clinical trials. She is now transitioning back to medical school to complete her clinical training and is considering pursuing pediatric oncology or dermatology as her specialty.

 
 

About Me

I was born in Cleveland, OH and grew up both there and in Houston, TX. I went to the University of Texas at Austin and received my bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. During undergrad, I worked in Dr. Hal Alper's lab and did a research internship at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. I have two spoiled shih tzus, an aquarium with a fat goldfish named Betty, and several houseplants (the collection continues to expand).

Hobbies/Interests

Hiking, kayaking, piano, houseplants, crocheting, traveling, going to concerts, anything involving dogs or Disney

Research Topic

Cancer immunology

Why I chose MD/PhD

I was really interested in the unique experience of an MD/PhD program because it allows for an experience in both treating the patient in the clinic while simultaneously working to understand the mechanism of disease to develop improved therapeutics. The MD/PhD dual degree program provides the opportunity to explore both passions for basic science research and clinical practice.

Education

B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2018

Awards

2022-2023      T32 Graduate Research in Immunology Program (GRIP) Scholar - T32 AI138944

2021-2022      CTSA Translational Science (TL-1) Fellowship Award

 

Publications

Murray, C., Galvan, E., Ontiveros, C., Deng, Y., Bai, H., Souto Padron, A., Hinchee-Rodriguez, K., Garcia, M. G., Kornepati, A., Conejo-Garcia, J., Curiel, T. J. (2022). Pharmacologic Tumor PDL1 Depletion with Cefepime or Ceftazidime Promotes DNA Damage and Sensitivity to DNA-Damaging Agents. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 23(9), 5129.  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23095129.

Kornepati, A. V. R., Boyd, J. T., Murray, C., Saifetiarova, J., de la Pena Avalos, B., Rogers, C. M., Bai, H., Padron, A. S., Liao, Y., Ontiveros, C., Svatek, R. S., Hromas, R., Li, R., Hu, Y., Conejo-Garcia, J. R., Vadlamudi, R. K., Zhao, W., Dray, E., Sung, P., Curiel, T. J. (2022). Tumor Intrinsic PD-L1 Promotes DNA Repair in Distinct Cancers and Suppresses PARP Inhibitor-Induced Synthetic Lethality. Cancer Research. 82(11), 2156-2170. https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-21-2076.

Garcia, M. G., Deng, Y., Murray, C., Reyes, R. M., Padron, A., Bai, H., Kancharla, A., Gupta, H., Shen-Orr, S., Curiel, T. J. (2022). Immune checkpoint expression and relationships to anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapy efficacy in aged versus young mice. Aging and Cancer. 3(1), 68-83.  https://doi.org/10.1002/aac2.12045.

Markham, K. A., Palmer, C. M., Chwatko, M., Wagner, J. M., Murray, C., Vasquez, S., Swaminathan, A., Chakravarty, I., Lynd, N. A., Alper, H. S. (2018). Rewiring Yarrowia lipolytica toward triacetic acid lactone for materials generation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115(9), 2096-2101. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721203115.

Haiyan Bai, Alvaro S Padron, Yilun Deng, Yiji J Liao, Clare Murray, Carlos Ontiveros, et. al. Pharmacological tumor PDL1 depletion with chlorambucil treats ovarian cancer and melanoma: improves antitumor immunity and renders anti-PDL1-resistant tumors anti-PDL1-sensitive through NK cell effects. J Immunother Cancer. 2023 Feb 9;11(2):e004871. doi: 10.1136/jitc-2022-004871https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9923271/

Carlos O. Ontiveros, Clare E. Murray, Grace Crossland, Tyler J. Curiel. (2023). Considerations and Approaches for Cancer Immunotherapy in the Aging Host. Cancer Immunol Res. 11 (11): 1449–1461. https://doi.org/10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-23-0121

https://aacrjournals.org/cancerimmunolres/article-abstract/11/11/1449/729681/Considerations-and-Approaches-for-Cancer?redirectedFrom=fulltext

 Clare Murray, Anand Kornepati, Carlos Ontiveros, et. al. Tumour-intrinsic PDl1 signals regulate the Chk2 DNA damage response in cancer cells and mediate resistance to Chk1 inhibitors. Mol Cancer 23, 242 (2024).  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12943-024-02147-z

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12943-024-02147-z