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As faculty in the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University, Dr. Matosevic leads an active, externally-funded research program in immunotherapy with natural killer cells. He has made important contributions to the field of NK cell immunotherapy and continues to study their reprogramming in the microenvironment of tumors and how this can be overcome to advance their use in the clinic. Dr. Matosevic has extensive experience in cell-based therapies with NK cells. Apart from a prolific research output, he has led important initiatives in cell therapy, aimed at standardizing cell-based therapy development and manufacturing with ISO and USP, as well as having organized and co-chaired a workshop at the National Institute of Standards and Technology with an international audience of academic and industrial stakeholders. He has acted on the Communications Committee of the International Society for Cellular Therapy and continue to organize and chair academic meetings on natural killer cell-based therapies.

1. Expanding the persistence of adoptively-transferred NK cells: Cytokine priming and epigenetic imprinting
2. Targeting purinergic signaling to improve natural killer cells immunotherapy of solid tumors
3. Genetic engineering of CD19-targeted chimeric antigen-receptor NK cells derived from cord blood as clinical treatment for immunotherapy of B cell lymphoma
4. New sources of functionally-mature NK cells: peripheral blood-derived induced pluripotent stem cells
5. The contribution of natural killer cells to immunotherapy with PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint blockade
6. Molecular checkpoints controlling NK cell activation and anti-tumor immunity
7. Exploiting hypoxia’s role in driving functional responses by IL-15-primed NK cells to target solid tumors
8. Metabolic reprogramming and the role of mTOR in driving NK cell anti-tumor immunity
9. Allo-reactive NK cells in immunotherapy of lung cancer: a clinical perspective
10. Control of tumor metastasis by NK cells
11. Challenges and opportunities with NK cells in the clinical treatment of acute myeloid leukemia