Summary
Cell therapy scientist with 15 years in biotech and academic core labs, taking CAR-T and NK-cell programs from discovery through IND. Focused on donor-driven CAR-T biology, pairing functional assays, single-cell cytokine profiling and in vivo work with R-based analysis and dashboards. Co-inventor on two granted US patents.
Experience
Genentech (Poseida Therapeutics, acquired January 2025)
2019–Present
Scientist 3
2025–Present
- Built a team-wide dashboard correlating donor characteristics with CAR-T production, in vitro and in vivo tumor-control data, making cross-study trends visible to anyone.
- Developed a serial restimulation assay measuring CAR-T killing and persistence under repeated tumor challenge.
- Profile single-cell cytokine responses of antigen-activated CAR-T cells and analyze them in R to link donor biology to product quality.
- Contributed to TASR immune cloaking, shielding allogeneic CAR-T cells from host NK killing to extend persistence.
- Improve post-thaw viability of CAR-T products, including antioxidant supplementation during manufacturing.
Research Scientist · Associate Scientist · Senior Research Associate · Research Associate
2019–2025
- Engineered and gene-edited T cells for CAR-T discovery and platform development, contributing to IND submissions for multiple programs, including anti-BCMA and anti-MUC1.
- Advanced the Healthy Donor Program for allogeneic CAR-T using cell separation, in vitro and in vivo characterization, and correlation and statistical analysis.
ImmunityBio (formerly NantKwest)
2017–2019
- Developed and optimized NK-cell isolation from PBMC and cord blood, scaling from bench to GMP-grade bioreactors.
- Demonstrated NK cytotoxicity across target cell lines and safety across healthy donors; work led to two granted patents.
- Optimized exosome purification from bovine milk and cell supernatant (ultracentrifugation, size-exclusion chromatography) and ran high-throughput bioactivity screens in human fibroblasts.
Stem Cell Core Facility, UC San Diego
2011–2014
- Ran and maintained flow cytometers and sorters for campus labs, purifying cell subsets from human, mouse and plant samples; supplied pluripotent hESC lines to UCSD researchers.
Skills
- Cell therapy
- CAR-T and NK-cell engineering, gene editing (Cas-CLOVER), T/NK isolation, GMP-scale bioreactors, lab management
- Assays
- Multicolor flow cytometry and sorting, serial restimulation and cytotoxicity assays, single-cell cytokine profiling, in vivo xenograft models
- Data
- R (tidyverse, ggplot2, Shiny, pharmaverse), Python, statistics, data visualization, HTML/CSS/JS
Publications & Patents
- Nat Commun 2025Tseng H, Dholaria B, Cranert SA, Richter M, Marquez K, et al. TSCM-predominant allogeneic anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma: preclinical characterization and interim results from a phase 1 trial. doi:10.1038/s41467-025-65267-0
- Mol Ther Nucleic Acids 2022Madison BB, Patil D, Richter M, …, Marquez K, et al. Cas-CLOVER is a novel high-fidelity nuclease for safe and robust generation of TSCM-enriched allogeneic CAR-T cells. doi:10.1016/j.omtn.2022.06.003
- PatentsDuggal R, Sinha R, Li W, Isaacson J, Marquez K, Soon-Shiong P. Mononuclear cell derived NK cells. US Patent 11,453,862 B2 (granted 2022) and US Patent 12,215,350 B2 (granted 2025); assigned to ImmunityBio.
Education
B.S., Molecular Biology
University of California, San Diego