Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, will deliver the next Discovery Lecture on Thursday, April 6.

His presentation, “Overcoming immune resistance and IDO-mediated metabolic communication in the ovarian tumor microenvironment,” begins at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall and will also be livestreamed.

Odunsi, the Abbvie Foundation Distinguished Service Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and dean for Oncology at the University of Chicago, specializes in the treatment of ovarian cancer. He is nationally recognized for his research focusing on the mechanisms of immune recognition in ovarian cancer and the preclinical and clinical development of tumor antigen-directed therapies.

He will discuss his group’s recent research focused on the CXCR4-CXCL12 axis, which is involved in ovarian cancer progression, and on the immunoregulatory enzyme IDO1 (indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase). The team’s findings are in the process of translation to a clinical trial.

Odunsi is the co-principal investigator for the Roswell Park-University of Chicago Specialized Program of Research Excellence in Ovarian Cancer. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018 and received the Rosalind Franklin Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research Award in 2019.

Odunsi’s lecture is sponsored by the Medical Scientist Training Program. For a complete schedule of Discovery Lectures, archived video of previous lectures, and the livestream link, go to https://www.vumc.org/dls/.