Pramod Kumar Srivastava

Pramod Kumar Srivastava (born 15 August 1955) is an American immunologist and physician serving as the Eversource Energy chairman in experimental oncology at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He is known for his work on cancer vaccines.

He is the scientific founder of Antigenics (AGEN), the New York-based biotech company.

Early life and education

Srivastava completed his Ph.D. at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India, and his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Career

Srivastava was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in 1989. He moved to Fordham University as an associate professor of biology in 1993 and became a full Professor in 1995. During this time, Srivastava co-founded a biotechnology company, Antigenics, in 1994.

In 1997, he was appointed physician health services professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He became the founding director of the Center for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases.He was also the founding chairman of the Department of Immunology. Since 2011, he has been the director of the Carole and Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Scientific and clinical work

Srivastava made contributions to neuroimmunology. His laboratory first identified the temperature receptors (TRPV receptors) on dendritic cells and reported the consequences of the engagement of these receptors on immune tolerance in the gut. In addition, Srivastava investigated neuroimmunology interactions and showed how the sympathetic nervous system is critical for the normal development of neutrophils and that dysregulation of this pathway leads to the generation of the immune suppressive myeloid-derived suppressor cells, which promotes the proliferation of regulatory T cells.

Publications

Srivastava has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 200 awarded patents in the field of cancer immunology including:

• Reversion analysis reveals the in vivo immunogenicity of a poorly MHC I-binding cancer neoepitope. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26646-5

• An unbiased approach to defining bona fide cancer neoepitopes that elicit immune-mediated cancer rejection. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci142823

• Sympathetic nervous tone limits the development of myeloid-derived suppressor cells Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciimmunol.aay9368

• Cross-dressing of CD8α+ Dendritic Cells with Antigens from Live Mouse Tumor Cells Is a Major Mechanism of Cross-priming Doi: https://doi.org/10.1158/2326-6066.cir-20-0248

• New epitopes in ovalbumin provide insights into cancer neoepitopes Doi: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.127882

• Mass spectrometry driven exploration reveals nuances of neoepitope-driven tumor rejection Doi: https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.129152

• Endocannabinoid system acts as a regulator of immune homeostasis in the gut Doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1612177114

• Tumor Control Index as a new tool to assess tumor growth in experimental animals Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jim.2017.03.013

• Oral ingestion of Capsaicin, the pungent component of chili pepper, enhances a discreet population of macrophages and confers protection from autoimmune diabetes.Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/mi.2011.50

• Duan F, Duitama J, Al Seesi S, Ayres CM, Corcelli SA, Pawashe AP, Blanchard T, McMahon D, Sidney J, Sette A, Mandoiu II, Srivastava PK. Genomic and bioinformatic profiling of mutational neoepitopes reveals new rules to predict anticancer immunogenicity. J Exp Med. (2014) 211:2231-48. PMID: 25245761

• Binder RJ, Srivastava PK.  Peptides chaperoned by heat shock proteins are a necessary and sufficient source of antigen in cross-priming CD8+ T cells.  Nature Immunology (2005) 6(6):593-9. PMID: 15864309 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/ni1201

• Basu S, Binder RJ, Srivastava PK.  CD91 is a common receptor for heat shock proteins gp96, hsp90, hsp70, and calreticulin, Immunity (2001) 14, 303-313, PMID: 11290339 Doi : https://doi.org/10.1016/s1074-7613(01)00111-x

• Basu S, Binder RJ, Suto R, Anderson KM, Srivastava PK.  Necrotic but not apoptotic cell death releases heat shock proteins, which deliver maturation signal to dendritic cells and activate the NFB pathway. International Immunology (2000) 12 (11), 1539-1546. PMID: 11058573 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/intimm/12.11.1539

• Binder RJ, Han DK, Srivastava PK.  CD91 is a receptor for heat shock protein gp96.  Nature Immunology (2000) 1 (2), 151-155. PMID: 11248808 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/77835

• Tamura Y, Peng P, Liu K, Daou M, Srivastava PK. Immunotherapy of metastatic lung cancer by heat shock protein preparations. Science (1997) 278(5335):117-120,1997. PMID: 9311915 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5335.117

• Suto R, Srivastava PK. A mechanism for the specific immunogenicity of heat shock protein - chaperoned peptides. Science (1995) 269, 1585-1588. PMID: 7545313 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7545313

Further reading

• Srivastava and Das 1984 International Journal of Cancer
• Srivastava and Maki 1991 Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology
• Udono and Srivastava 1993 Journal of Experimental Medicine
• Srivastava 2002 Annual review of Immunology
• Binder et al. 2000 Nature Immunology
• Basu et al. 2001 Immunity
• Srivastava 1993 Advances in Cancer Research
• Ebrahimi-Nik et al. 2021 Nature Communications
• Brennick et al. 2021 Journal of Clinical Investigation
• Duan et al. 2014 Journal of Experimental Medicine.
• Basu and Srivastava 2005 PNAS
• Acharya et al. 2017 PNAS
• Nevin et al. 2020 Science Immunology