Siva Karthik Varanasi was a NOMIS–Salk Fellow at the Salk Institute in LaJolla, USA. He is assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, USA.

Varanasi was born in India and received his bachelor’s degree in biotechnology at Osmania University in India in 2009 and a master’s degree in biotechnology at VIT University in India in 2011. Varanasi completed his PhD at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2018. He received numerous awards during his PhD, including the Graduate Student Senate Research Award, Carolyn Fite Award, Yates dissertation Fellowship and Student/Faculty Research Grant for advancements in the field of biology. Varanasi’s dissertation investigated the reasons why virus infections lead to chronic inflammatory lesions and how immune cells and the metabolic state of the host plays a central role determining the outcome of virus infections.

As a NOMIS–Salk Fellow, Varanasi evaluated how immune cells called CD8+ T cells metabolically adapt to different tissues especially within liver. He focused on understanding the impacts the microenvironment on CD8+ T cell infiltration and function especially within liver tumors. In liver cancer, despite being infiltrated by T cells, adoptive immunotherapy is usually unsuccessful in controlling tumor progression as is the response to immune-checkpoint blockade. Often liver cancers are presented with elevated levels of bile acids (BAs) that are primarily synthesized within livers. Varanasi evaluated if these BAs contribute to tumor progression by modulating CD8+ T cell function and survival. The results from these studies will uncover novel forms of T cell immunosuppression in tumors and also provide new therapeutic options targeting BA signaling to enhance anti-tumor immune responses in combination with immunotherapy.