Clinical Focus

• Cancer> Blood and Marrow Transplant
• Cancer> Lymphoma
• Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma
• Medical Oncology
• Myeloma

Administrative Appointments

• Scientific Advisory Board, Lymphoma Research Foundation (2011 - present)

Honors and Awards

• ITI Seed Grant Award, Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, Stanford University (2011-2012)
• Division Teaching Award, BMT, Stanford University (2010)
• Developmental Research Award, Stanford University Cancer Center (2009-2010)
• Division Teaching Award, BMT, Stanford University (2009)
• K08 Clinical Scientist Career Development Award, NIH/NCI (2005-2009)

Professional Education

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Cancer Biology
• Medicine

Internet Links

• Wen-Kai Weng, MD, PhD

Current Research Interests

My clinical focus is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and am currently conducting clinical trials with novel therapies on these patients. My basic research interest is immunotherapy for cancer, with two components: monoclonal antibody therapy and tumor vaccines. On the antibody therapy end, I have studied the mechanism of an anti-CD20 antibody, rituximab, in treating B cell NHL. I found that the main anti-tumor action of rituximab is through Antibody-dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC) and the poperty of Fc receptor on the killer cells (NK and Macrophages) is the predictive factor of clinical response. I also found that tumor-specific cytotoxic T cells were generated after rituximab therapy probably due to dendritic cell activation by Fc receptor/rituixmab interaction and cross-presentation of tumor antigens to the T cells. Based on the importance of interaction between the Fc of therapeutic antibodies and FcR on killer cells, I am designing the next generation of monoclonal antibodies with higher affinity to various FcR. The goal is to make an antibody with more efficient ADCC ability to overcome resistance in patients who did not response to treatment.

For the tumor vaccine end, I am conducting clinical trials using a tumor-specific antigen (idiotype) as a vaccine in patients with follicular NHL after induction thearpy. I also recently found out that the clinical benefit from this idiotype vaccination was associated with anti-idiotype antibody induction after vaccination and with the poperty of FcR on killer cells. This result supports the model that anti-tumor antibodies are critical part of this tumor vaccine therapy. Currently, I am developing a novel strategy to use rituximab-coated tumor cells/dendrtic cells as a therapeutic vaccine.

Clinical Trials

• Autologous Followed by Non-myeloablative Allogeneic Transplantation for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Recruiting
• Ph II of Autologous Followed by Nonmyeloablative Allogeneic Transplantation Using TLI & ATG Recruiting
• Ph II of Non-myeloablative Allogeneic Transplantation Using TLI & ATG In Patients w/ Cutaneous T Cell Lymphoma Recruiting
• Stem Cell Transplant With Lenalidomide Maintenance in Patients With Multiple Myeloma (BMT CTN 0702) Recruiting
• A Phase 3 Study of Brentuximab Vedotin (SGN-35) for Prevention of Hodgkin Lymphoma Progression (The AETHERA Trial) Recruiting

Publications

• Stimulation of natural killer cells with an antibody to CD137 enhances trastuzumb efficacy in breast cancer Holbrook Hohrt, Roch Kouot, Kipp Weiskipf, Matthew Goldstein, Ferenc Scheeren, Debra Czerwinski, Dimitrios Colevas, Wen-Kai Weng, Michael Clarke, Robert Carlson, Frank Stockdale, Joseph Mollick, Lieping Chen, Ronald Levy. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. in press
• The histone deacetylase inhibitor, romidepsin, suppresses cellular immune function of cutaneous T cell lymphoma patients Michael Kelly-Sell, Youn Kim, Suzanne Straus, Bernice Benoit, Cameron Harrison, Katherine Sutherland, Randall Armstrong, Wen-Kai Weng, Louise Show, Maria Wysocka, Alain Rook. American Journal of Hematology. in press
• Adoptive immunotherapy with cytokine-induced killer cells for patients with relapsed hematologic malignancies after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Laport GG, Sheehan K, Baker J, Armstrong R, Wong RM, Lowsky R, Johnston LJ, Shizuru JA, Miklos D, Arai S, Benjamin JE, Weng WK, Negrin RS. Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2011; 17 (11): 1679-87
• Tandem chemo-mobilization followed by high-dose melphalan and carmustine with single autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation for multiple myeloma. Chen AI, Negrin RS, McMillan A, Shizuru JA, Johnston LJ, Lowsky R, Miklos DB, Arai S, Weng WK, Laport GG, Stockerl-Goldstein K. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2011
• Immunoglobulin G Fc receptor FcgammaRIIIa 158 V/F polymorphism correlates with rituximab-induced neutropenia after autologous transplantation in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Weng WK, Negrin RS, Lavori P, Horning SJ. J Clin Oncol. 2010; 28 (2): 279-84