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Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Carlos Ontiveros

M.D./Ph.D. Student

Carlos Ontiveros is a student in the South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD program) who recently completed his PhD studying tumor immunology under the mentorship of Tyler Curiel, MD, MPH. For his research, Carlos studied the role of tumor cell-of-origin PDL1 in tumorigenesis and early tumor progression in multiple cancers, including melanoma and bladder cancer. He is now transitioning back to medical school to complete his clinical training and is considering pursuing hematology/oncology or surgical oncology as his specialty.

 
 

About Me

I was born in San Antonio and grew up in both SA and El Paso. I went to the University of Texas at El Paso for undergrad and did a research internship at Scripps in La Jolla, CA. I like rocks, cars, fishing, and the outdoors.

Hobbies/Interests

Working on cars, fishing, hiking, biking, kayaking, mineral collecting, wine collecting.

Research Topic

Tumor Immunology; melanoma; tumorigenesis; cancer

Why I chose MD/PhD

I started out just wanting to pursue medicine after attending a health magnet high school. In college, I was exposed to research and I really liked it. My undergraduate scientific mentor saw that I enjoyed both medicine and research and introduced me to the idea of pursuing a MD/PhD dual degree. I spent a lot of time deciding if this path was the right one for me by gaining both clinical and biomedical research experience and decided I couldn't have one without the other.

Why I chose MD/PhD at º£½ÇÂ×ÂÒ

The availability of research in my fields of interest. The rigor and reputation of the program and the institution. The diversity of support systems offered for students.

Education

B.S., Biology, University of Texas El Paso, 2018

Awards

2023 - 2027    F31CA281345, NRSA Individual Predoctoral Fellowship: ""

Publications

1.            Ontiveros C, Abhimanyu, Guerra-Resendez RS, Nishiguchi T, Ladki M, Hilton IB, Schlesinger LS and DiNardo AR (2021) Reversing Post-Infectious Epigenetic-Mediated Immune Suppression. Front. Immunol. 12:688132. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.688132

2.            Kornepati AVR, Boyd JT, Murray CE, Saifetyarova J, de la Peña Avalos B, Rogers CM, Bai H, Padron AS, Liao Y, Ontiveros C, Svatek RS, Hromas R, Li R, Hu Y, Conejo-Garcia JR, Vadlamudi RK, Zhao W, Dray E, Sung P, Curiel TJ. Tumor-intrinsic PD-L1 promotes DNA repair in distinct cancers and suppresses PARP inhibitor-induced synthetic lethality. Cancer Research. 2022 doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-21-2076. PMID: 35247877.

3.            Murray CE, Galvan E, Ontiveros C, Deng Y, Bai H, Souto Padron A, Hinchee-Rodriguez K, Garcia MG, Kornepati AVR, Conejo-Garcia J, Curiel TJ. Pharmacologic tumor PDL1 depletion with cefepime or ceftazidime promotes DNA damage and sensitivity to DNA damaging agents. Int. Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2022 doi: 10.3390/ijms23095129. PMID: 35563520

4.            Bai H, Souto Padron A, Deng Y, Liao Y, Murray CE, Ontiveros C, Kari S, Kancharla A, Kornepati AVR, Garcia MG, Reyes R, Gupta H, Conejo-Garcia J, Curiel TJ. Pharmacologic tumor PDL1 depletion with chlorambucil treats ovarian cancer and melanoma, improves anti-tumor immunity and renders anti-PDL1-resistant tumors anti-PDL1-sensitive through NK cell effects. JITC. 2023 doi: 10.1136/jitc-2022-004871

5.            Acuña M, García-Morin A, Orozco-Sepúlveda R, Ontiveros C, Flores A, Diaz A, Gutiérrez-Zubiate I, Patil A, Alvarado L, Roy S, Russell W, Rosas-Acosta G. Alternative splicing of the SUMO1/2/3 transcripts affects cellular SUMOylation and produces functionally distinct SUMO protein isoforms. Scientific Reports. 2023 doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29357-7

6.            Oliveira G, Vogels C, Zolfaghari A, Saraf S, Klitting R, Weger-Lucarelli J, Leon K, Ontiveros C, Agarwal R, Tsetsarkin K, Harris E, Ebel G, Wohl S, Grubaugh N, Andersen K. Genomic and phenotypic analyses suggest moderate fitness differences among Zika virus lineages. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2023 doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0011055

7.            Ontiveros C, Murray CE, Crossland G, Curiel TJ. Considerations and Approaches for Cancer Immunotherapy in the Aging Host. Cancer Immunology Research. 2023 doi: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-23-0121

8.            Arnett E, Wolff J, Leopold Wager CM, Simper J, Badrak J, Ontiveros C, Ni B, Schlesinger LSS. Cutting Edge: Cytosolic receptor AIM2 is induced by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor g following Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection of human macrophages but does not contribute to IL-1b release. Cutting Edge The Journal of Immunology. 2024 doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2300418

9.            Murray CE, Kornepati AVR, Ontiveros C, Liao Y, De la Peña Avalos B, Rogers CM, Liu Z, Deng Y, Bai H, Kari S, Souto Padron A, Boyd JT, Reyes R, Clark CA, Svatek RS, Li R, Hu Y, Wang M, Conejo-Garcia J, Byers LA, Ramkumar K, Sood AK, Lee JM, Burd CE, Vadlamudi RK, Gupta H, Zhao W, Dray E, Sung P, Curiel TJ. Tumour-intrinsic PDL1 signals regulate the Chk2 DNA damage response in cancer cells and mediate resistance to Chk1 inhibitors. Molecular Cancer. 2024 doi: 10.1186/s12943-024-02147-z