- Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, San Francisco, 2026 (Mentor: Max Krummel)
- Ph.D., Cancer Biology, Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, 2019 (Mentor: Renier Brentjens)
- M.Sc., Molecular Medicine, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, 2013
- B.Sc., Biomedicine, Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg, Germany, 2011
Education & Training
Kuhn NF, Zaleta-Linares I, Hu KH, Courau T, Davidson B, Tam T, Chu CW, Kinet MJ, Rosenblum
MD, Combes AJ, Nyberg WA, Eyquem J, Krummel MF. Local gene editing of fibroblasts in tumors
reveals a new cancer-associated fibroblast state. J Exp Med. 2026 May 4;223(5):e20251228. doi:10.1084/jem.20251228. PMID: 41879666.
Hu KH*, Kuhn NF*, Courau T, Tsui J, Samad B, Ha P, Kratz JR, Combes AJ, Krummel MF.
Transcriptional space-time mapping identifies concerted immune and stromal cell patterns and gene programs in wound healing and cancer. Cell Stem Cell. 2023 Jun 1;30(6):885-903.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2023.05.001.PMID: 37267918. *Co-first authorship.
Combes AJ*, Courau T*, Kuhn NF*, Hu KH*, Ray A*, Chen WS, Cleary SJ, Chew NW, Kushnoor D, Reeder GC, Shen A, Tsui J, Hiam-Galvez KJ, Muñoz-Sandoval P, Zhu WS, Lee DS, Sun Y, You R, Magnen M, Rodriguez L, Leligdowicz A, Zamecnik CR, Loudermilk RP, Wilson MR, Ye CJ, Fragiadakis GK, Looney MR, Chan V, Ward A, Carrillo S, The UCSF COMET Consortium, Matthay M, Erle DJ, Woodruff PG, Langelier C, Kangelaris K, Hendrickson CM, Calfee C, Rao AA, Krummel MF. Global Absence and Targeting of Protective Immune States in Severe COVID-19. Nature. 2021 Aug;596(7872):E8. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03718-6. PMID: 34341540. *Co-first authorship.
Kuhn NF, Lopez AV, Li X, Cai W, Daniyan AF, Brentjens RJ. CD103+ cDC1 and endogenous CD8+ T cells are necessary for improved CD40L-overexpressing CAR T cell antitumor function. Nat Commun. 2020 Dec 2;11(1):6171. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19833-3.PMID: 33268774.
Kuhn NF, Purdon TJ, van Leeuwen DG, Lopez AV, Curran KJ, Daniyan AF, Brentjens RJ. CD40 Ligand-Modified Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells Enhance Antitumor Function by Eliciting an Endogenous Antitumor Response. Cancer Cell. 2019 Mar 18. PMID: 30889381.
- Tumor microenvironment assembly and dynamics
- Stromal-immune cell interactions
- Cancer-associated fibroblast manipulation
- T cell manipulation
- Cell and gene engineering in vivo
The goal of the Kuhn lab is to decode communication axes between cells in normal physiology and tumor malignancy to uncover fundamental insights into how the tumor microenvironment is assembled on a molecular and cellular level, with a particular emphasis on pancreatic cancer. The ultimate goal is to identify novel approaches for improved diagnostics and cell therapies in cancer. Our research approach is guided by the following principles: (i) chronic aberrations from homeostasis lead to disease; (ii) these aberrations are detected on the intra- and extracellular level; (iii) identifying these aberrations informs development of improved diagnostics and therapeutics.
To achieve this goal, our experimental research focuses on (1) genetically manipulating cells of the tumor microenvironment—primarily cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and T cells—with high spatial and temporal precision. This is combined with (2) transcriptional and proteomic analysis of the cellular and extracellular tumor microenvironment. We apply and further develop novel functional genomic assays that allow in vivo perturbation of CAFs on a single- and multi-gene level, as well as in pooled CRISPR screens to identify transcriptional regulators and signaling pathways that instruct CAF cell states. By combining technology development with the concept of ‘perturbing a system, in order to understand a system’, we aim to improve our understanding of how the tumor microenvironment is structured on a cellular and molecular level to identify cancer vulnerabilities.