Bio

Janaki Manoja Vinnakota PhD is a Junior Group Leader in the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation at the University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany. She is a visiting post-doctoral scholar at Stanford at CCSR. Dr. Vinnakota’s research provided insights into understanding the pathomechanisms associated with central nervous system (CNS) related toxicities such as graft versus host diseases (CNS-GVHD), neurological immune related adverse events (nirAEs) and immune cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) and has most importantly unveiled therapeutic targets with high translational value. She identified the critical role of microglia/myeloid cells in mediating the neurotoxicity and cognitive impairment post diverse cancer immunotherapies. Her work on microglial Syk activation post immune checkpoint inhibition led to a translational application of the most promising and clinically available Syk inhibitor to target CNS irAEs. Dr. Vinnakota was awarded the highly competitive Hans A Krebs Medical Scientist grant, Germany to develop novel therapies that target CAR T cell associated toxicities.
Dr. Vinnakota holds a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering with a focus on biotechnology from IIT Madras, India. Her strong foundation in basic biology has enabled her to investigate projects with significant translational potential. For her Ph.D., Dr. Vinnakota studied the mechanisms of neurotoxicity following allogeneic stem cell transplantation and CAR T cell therapy. During her postdoctoral research, she expanded her expertise to explore neurotoxicity’s associated with immune checkpoint inhibition (anti-PD-1), the gut-microbiome axis in CNS-GVHD, and novel Kinase inhibition strategies to address GVHD.
Dr. Vinnakota was also honored with the prestigious Jan van Rood award from the EBMT society for her work on Targeting ICANS after CD19 CAR T cell therapy and she received the Prize for Innovative Research Approaches in Oncology by the Mertesmann Foundation, Germany for her groundbreaking work on the mechanisms of ICANS after CD19 CAR T cell therapy. Her contributions to immuno-oncology have been published in leading journals such as Nature Cancer, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Nature Communications. Additionally, she actively mentors PhD an d MD students working on diverse cancer immunotherapy projects.