Q&A with Dr. Anastasia Varanko: Reprogramming Immune Cells From Cancer Allies to Cancer Fighters
August 10, 2026Dr. Anastasia Varanko, a postdoctoral trainee at Vanderbilt University, aims to make existing immunotherapies more effective to expand their benefit to a broader range of patients and cancer types.
Anastasia Varanko was always a bit of a science nerd, but her decision to pursue research solidified while in high school, when a clinical trial successfully treated her father’s precancerous esophageal condition.
“Seeing how scientific research could ultimately benefit patients and their families was really transformative for me,” she said.
Motivated by that experience, Varanko earned her PhD in biological engineering from Duke University and is now a postdoctoral trainee at Vanderbilt University, where she studies ways to harness the body’s natural immune response to destroy cancer.
While immunotherapy treatments can be highly effective, they do not currently work for all patients. Varanko received a 2026 PhRMA Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Drug Delivery for her research aiming to make existing immunotherapies more effective, potentially expanding their benefit to a broader range of patients and cancer types.
She is developing a new therapeutic strategy that selectively targets immune cells that tumors manipulate to suppress the body’s natural immune response against cancer. She aims to reprogram these immune cells to support — rather than suppress — the immune response to cancer.
Learn more about Varanko and her research in this video.
