Douglas Lake

About

Douglas Lake is a tumor immunologist who has been a faculty member at Arizona State University since 2006. Prior to joining ASU, he worked at the University of Arizona Cancer Center where he focused on studying anti-tumor T cells and tumor-associated peptides as targets for immunotherapy. His current research centers on an enzyme called QSOX1, which is over-expressed in multiple tumor types. Lake was the first to demonstrate that QSOX1 plays a critical role in tumor cell growth, invasion, and metastasis. His laboratory is actively developing chemical and biological inhibitors of QSOX1 that hold strong therapeutic potential for cancer treatment. In addition to his cancer research, Lake's lab investigates Valley Fever (Coccidioidomycosis), addressing the urgent clinical need for an accurate and sensitive diagnostic test. Since the existing diagnostic relies on an immune response that is often delayed, patients can remain undiagnosed for up to three months and receive inappropriate treatment. To overcome this, Lake is developing a test that detects fungal components in the urine of infected patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed a rapid antibody test that measures protective neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, enabling individuals to monitor their immunity levels after vaccination or infection and determine the timing for additional vaccine doses. Beyond research, Lake teaches immunology and microbiology at the undergraduate level and advanced cell biology…

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Virology
• Biology
• Immunology
• Gastroenterology

Selected publications

• Development of a rapid point-of-care test that measures neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2

  Journal of Clinical Virology · 2021 · 49 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: After receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, most recipients want to know if they are protected from infection and for how long. Since neutralizing antibodies are a correlate of protection, we developed a lateral flow assay (LFA) that measures levels of neutralizing antibodies from a drop of blood. The LFA is based on the principle that neutralizing antibodies block binding of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). METHODS: The ability of the LFA was asse…

  DOI

• SARS-CoV-2 Serologic Assays Dependent on Dual-Antigen Binding Demonstrate Diverging Kinetics Relative to Other Antibody Detection Methods

  Journal of Clinical Microbiology · 2021 · 28 citations

  Longitudinal studies assessing durability of the anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (anti-SARS-CoV-2) humoral immune response have generated conflicting results. This has been proposed to be due to differences in patient populations, the lack of standardized methodologies, and the use of assays that measure distinct aspects of the humoral response. SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were serially measured in sera from a cohort of 44 well-characterized convalescent plasma donors over 120 day…

  DOI

• Retrospective clinical evaluation of 4 lateral flow assays for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 IgG

  Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease · 2020 · 15 citations

  DOI

• Development of a rapid lateral flow assay for detection of anti-coccidioidal antibodies

  Journal of Clinical Microbiology · 2023-09-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  spp. are dimorphic fungi that are capable of infecting human and non-human mammals and can cause diverse manifestations of coccidioidomycosis or Valley fever (VF). In combination with clinical symptoms and radiographic findings, antibody-based diagnostic tests are often used to diagnose and monitor patients with VF. Chitinase 1 (CTS1) has previously been identified as the seroreactive antigen used in these diagnostic assays to detect anticoccidial IgG. Here, an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbe…

  PublisherDOI

• Reprogramming glutamine metabolism enhances <i>BCMA</i> -CAR T-cell fitness and therapeutic efficacy in multiple myeloma

  Blood · 2025-09-19 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT: Glutamine dependence of cancer cells reduces local glutamine availability, which hinders antitumor T-cell functionality and facilitates immune evasion. We thus speculated that glutamine deprivation might be limiting efficacy of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies in patients with cancer. We have seen that antigen-specific T cells are unable to proliferate or produce interferon gamma (IFN-γ) in response to antigen stimulation when glutamine concentration is limited. Using m…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AI043480

  NIH · $568k · 2004

• Host control in Coccidioidomycosis

  NIH · $8.3M · 2004–2010

• Serological Biomarkers for Coccidioidomycosis

  NIH · $1.5M · 2021–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin A. Katchman

  LungLife AI (United States)

  36 shared

• Galen Hostetter

  36 shared

• Michael J. Demeure

  Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian

  35 shared

• Kwasi Antwi

  34 shared

• Georges Decker

  33 shared

• Thomas E. Grys

  Mayo Clinic Hospital

  31 shared

• Yvette Ruiz

  Arizona State University

  26 shared

• Natalie M. Mitchell

  Arizona State University

  24 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Tumor Immunology

  University of Arizona Cancer Center

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