Arja Ray, PhD

Primary Academic Title

Assistant Professor of Cell Biology

Background

Centers and Institutes

The Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy

Recent News Articles and Media Coverage

Translating Science into Survival: Report on the Sixth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference, AACR Journals, (February 03, 2023)

Research from 14 NextGen Stars featured throughout the program, American Association of Cancer Research Meeting News (April 4, 2022)

Additional Academic Titles

Assistant Professor of Oncology

Research Interests

cancer immunology, CD8 T cells, Macrophages, cell-ECM mechanobiology,

2-photon imaging

Lab Website

https://www.arjaraylab.com/

Research Summary

Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of cancer. Most modalities of cancer immunotherapy work by enabling cytotoxic CD8 T cells to recognize and kill cancer cells. These cells, however, do not work in isolation and are inextricably shaped by the aberrant tumor microenvironment (TME), which includes other immune cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells, as well as acellular components such as the extracellular matrix (ECM). We seek to understand the intrinsic and microenvironmental regulation of cytotoxic CD8 T cell function in the context of tumors. We take advantage of novel genetically engineered mouse models to mark specific states of T cells and macrophages, high dimensional immune profiling, live imaging, in vitro 3D ECM culture systems and a variety of other techniques.

PubMed - Publications

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/arja.ray.2/bibliography/public/

Selected Publications

Ray A, Bassette M, Hu KH, Pass LF, Courau T, Samad B, Combes AJ, Johri V, Davidson B, Wai K, Ha P, Hernandez G, Zaleta-Linares I, Krummel MF.: Multimodal delineation of a layer of effector function among exhausted CD8 T cells in tumors. Sci Immunol. 2025; 10(109): eadt3537

Ray A, Hu KH, Kersten K, Courau T, Kuhn NF, Zaleta-Linares I, Samad B, Combes AJ, Krummel MF. Targeting CD206+ macrophages disrupts the establishment of a key anti-tumor immune axis. 
J Exp Med. (2025) 222 (1): e20240957

Ray A*, Callaway MK*, Rodríguez-Merced NJ, Crampton AL, Carlson M, Emme KB, Ensminger EA, Kinne AA, Schrope JH, Rasmussen HR, Jiang H, DeNardo DG, Wood DK, Provenzano PP.: Stromal architecture directs early dissemination in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. JCI Insight, 7(3): e150330, 2022 

Ray A., Lee O., Win Z., Edwards RM, Alford PW, Kim DH, Provenzano PP: Anisotropic forces from spatially constrained focal adhesions mediate contact guidance directed cell migration. Nature Communications 8:14923, 2017

Ray A, Slama ZM, Morford RK, Madden SA, Provenzano PP: Enhanced directional migration of cancer stem cells in 3D aligned collagen matrices. Biophys J., 112(5):1023-1036, 2017

Honors

2025   AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group Monthly Junior Investigator Highlight (September) 

2024   Arthur and Sandra Irving Cancer Immunology Symposium Fellow 

2023   AAI Travel Award, FASEB Autoimmunity Conference 

2022   Postdoctoral Independence Grant, Sandler Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research, UCSF 

2022   NextGen Star, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022 

2020    CRI Postdoctoral Fellowship, Cancer Research Institute  

2019    Best Dissertation Award, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota 

2016     Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, University of Minnesota 

2016     Outstanding Teaching Assistant in Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota 

2014   Finalist Award in Poster Competition, ASME 2014 3rd Global Congress on Nano Engineering for Medicine and Biology 

2012   Institute Silver Medal, IIT Kharagpur 

2012   Best Master’s Thesis Award, Dept. of Biotechnology, IIT Kharagpur  

Graduate Program Affiliations

Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB)

Cellular and Molecular Medicine (CMM)

Immunology

Memberships

American Association for Cancer Research