Center for Clinical and Translational Science

Dr. Jeffrey Wong joined the Clinical Scholars program in July 2019 in the Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology mentored by Dr. Jeffrey Ravetch.  Dr. Wong received his MD and PhD in Immunology from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is currently completing a fellowship in medical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) with a special focus on genitourinary malignancies.

How did you get interested in research?  Were you always interested?
I was always fascinated by the elegance of biology, even as a kid. I can remember, for instance, reading this picture book called “DNA is Here to Stay” that had little drawings of cells and animals and smiling kids with magnifying glasses. I was astonished by the thought that these tiny, lettered strands held the blueprints for everything from elephants to coconuts - even me - and that by understanding this code you could figure out how it all worked. During high school, as my interest in science matured, I became especially fascinated by immunology and the incredible specificity, efficiency, and durability of our body’s own immune system to detect and fight disease. At the same time, though, I wondered how and why these seemingly perfect processes, described so neatly in the textbook, could fail. I was fortunate at that point to be introduced to a lab asking just these types of questions (and was willing to have a high school student fumble around at the bench for a summer), which was the start of my more serious pursuit of research.

How did you come to Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology?
After finishing my MD/PhD training at the University of Pittsburgh and my Internal Medicine residency training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, I was excited to come to New York for my medical oncology fellowship training at MSK. I was especially excited because MSK’s fellowship program provides significant protected time to pursue research, and through the Tri-Institutional partnership, I could tap into the incredibly rich intellectual and research environment shared between Rockefeller University and MSK. Like many others, I have always admired Dr. Jeffrey Ravetch’s truly transformative work defining our fundamental understanding of antibody responses in health and disease. When I first met with him, though, I was also struck by his vision not only in pursuing groundbreaking discovery science, but also in asking important translational questions highly relevant to human health, which were of great interest to me as a physician-scientist. Combined with his impressive mentorship record and the incredible support and environment of the lab around him, I knew I wanted to join Jeff’s lab for my training as part of the MSK fellowship and Clinical Scholars programs.

What is your current research?
My current research focuses on understanding aspects of antibody immunobiology and how it can be harnessed to develop better anti-cancer therapeutic antibodies. We are particularly interested in the antibody Fc domain, which can play a critical role in determining the ultimate activity of a specific antibody through its pattern of Fc receptor engagement on different immune cells. By understanding aspects of this natural biology, we can also use this knowledge to rationally engineer the Fc domain to produce more effective therapeutic antibodies. For instance, I have worked heavily with agonistic antibodies targeting the immune-stimulatory CD40 pathway, which is a central pathway driving productive anti-tumor immune responses. Using our understanding of the Fc domain’s key role in determining the activity of CD40 antibodies, we have been able to design antibodies with significantly enhanced anti-cancer activity. During my time here, it has been incredibly satisfying to take this process truly from the bench to the bedside, studying immune mechanisms and novel engineered antibodies in sophisticated humanized mouse models and subsequently developing an investigator-initiated phase I clinical trial in partnership with MSK to translate one of these novel antibody candidates into the clinic to treat patients with bladder cancer.

What were your expectations when you joined the CS program and have they been met?
I expected to receive great training on every stage of the translational research process. This has been fully met by the Clinical Scholars program, whether through direct mentored experiences (such as in preclinical science and development of a phase I clinical program) or through workshops, didactics, and other experiences extending all the way from early-stage trial design to population-level outcomes research.

What has been a learning opportunity or teaching moment as a Scholar?
The value of exposure to ideas, research, techniques, etc. outside of my field is something I am reminded of frequently. Too often, it is easy to become hyper-focused because of the incredible body of knowledge that is out there even in one narrow area. Through interactions with my fellow Scholars, many of whom are working in quite different fields, and by participating in events like the Scholars Tutorials and the Seminar in Clinical Research, I am reminded how rich these diverse experiences can be and how it can directly strengthen my research in often unexpected ways.

What has been the most educational, interesting, and/or surprising aspect of being in the CS program?
Taking a novel therapeutic concept “soup to nuts” all the way from preclinical lab studies to an early-phase clinical trial (and using the data and biospecimens from that trial to feed back to lab science and the design of future clinical studies) has truly been the most educational, interesting, and rewarding aspect of my time in the program. Along the way, I have learned so much from an incredibly large group of mentors and collaborators, from Jeff and my lab group on the preclinical side to my clinical mentors at MSK and so many more (biostatisticians, clinical research support teams, regulatory specialists, pharmacists, intellectual property experts, etc., etc., etc.). It has been a transformative experience that I will carry with me throughout my future career.

If you someone asked you to describe the CS program in one sentence, what would it be?
I think that my colleague and former Clinical Scholar Ohad Bentur said it best, that the Clinical Scholars Program “teaches you to learn how to conduct research the right way.”

What are your next steps/career goals when you graduate from the program?
After I graduate, I plan on applying what I have learned in the Clinical Scholars Program and my training as a physician-scientist toward a career at the interface of understanding and engineering the immune system for novel cancer therapies.