Anushka Dongre

About

Anushka Dongre, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst under Dr. Barbara A. Osborne, where she demonstrated the importance of Notch signaling in regulating T-cell function. Following this, she pursued postdoctoral training with Dr. Robert A. Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT. During her postdoctoral work, she showed that the epithelial-mesenchymal transition contributes to the establishment of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and drives resistance of breast cancers to immune checkpoint blockade therapy. Dr. Dongre chairs the executive committee of the Cancer Metabolism Focus Group (CMFG) at Cornell and serves on the communications sub-committee of the AACR-Cancer Immunology Working Group. Her research interests lie at the intersection of cancer biology and immunology, with a particular focus on understanding mechanisms that regulate tumor microenvironments and immune responses. She is also passionate about mentoring the next generation of graduate and undergraduate students. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys painting, playing the piano, and spending time with her family and her dog, Wilkie.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Biology
• Immunology
• Cancer research
• Cell biology
• Internal medicine
• Oncology

Selected publications

• p95HER2, a truncated form of the HER2 oncoprotein, drives an immunosuppressive program in HER2+ breast cancer that limits trastuzumab deruxtecan efficacy

  Nature Cancer · 2025-06-27 · 7 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Immune Checkpoint Blockade Therapy for Breast Cancer: Lessons from Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition

  Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy · 2023-05-16 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Immune checkpoint blockade therapies have generated efficacious responses in certain tumor types; however, the responses of breast carcinomas have been largely limited. Moreover, the identity of various parameters that can predict responses to immunotherapies, and at the same time, serve as putative biomarkers that can be therapeutically targeted to enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapies for breast cancers, remains to be comprehensively delineated. Activation of epithelial-mesenchymal plas…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• CD4 ⁺ T-cells sensitize quasi-mesenchymal breast tumors lacking CD73 to anti-CTLA4 immune checkpoint blockade therapy

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-05-13 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Although immune checkpoint blockade therapy has generated dramatic responses in certain cancer types, breast tumors are largely unresponsive. Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity leads to the assembly of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and drives resistance of breast tumors to immunotherapies. Importantly, targeting CD73 completely sensitizes quasi-mesenchymal breast tumors to anti-CTLA4 immune checkpoint blockade therapy. However, the mechanism(s) of sensitization remained unknown. We…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity and immunosuppression in canine carcinomas reveals cross-species upregulation of CD109

  Communications Biology · 2026-01-22 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) is activated in carcinoma cells to drive metastasis and chemoresistance. Recently, we demonstrated that EMP activation results in an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy resistance in a syngeneic orthotopic murine model. However, it has yet to be shown whether this is conserved in canine carcinomas. Here, we show that in spontaneous canine mammary carcinomas (CMCs), which share clinical and molecular features with human breast cancers…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Abstract 2800: Understanding the mechanism by which CD4+ T cells sensitize mesenchymal CD73-deficient tumors to anti-CTLA4 immune checkpoint blockade therapy

  Cancer Research · 2026-04-03

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive disease with poor patient outcomes due to its resistance to chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Despite its efficacy in Melanoma and Lung carcinoma, immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy is only effective in a small minority of TNBC patients. Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is a key driver of malignant progression leading to greater metastatic potential and an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, driving resistan…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert A. Weinberg

  Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

  67 shared

• Ferenc Reinhardt

  Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

  49 shared

• Zuzana Keckesova

  Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry

  39 shared

• Mohammad Rashidian

  Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

  37 shared

• Hidde L. Ploegh

  Boston Children's Museum

  33 shared

• Aaron Bagnato

  22 shared

• Jasmine M. De Cock

  12 shared

• Anna Martner

  11 shared

Labs

• Dongre LabPI

Education

• PhD, Osborne Lab

  University of Massachusetts

Awards & honors

• Byron Prize for outstanding PhD dissertation
• Ludwig Cancer Research Postdoctoral Fellowship
• Whitehead Institute Postdoc Association Education Award
• Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund Scholarship
• AACR Scholar-In-Training Award

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