Meet the 2024-2025 Pediatric Medical Oncology Fellow Dr. Vanja Cabric

Vanja Cabric, MD | Kristen Ann Carr Fund Pediatric Medical Oncology Fellow

Vanja Cabric, MD, is a recent graduate of the Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology Fellowship training program through NewYork-Presbyterian/ Weill Cornell Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). She has a clinical interest in the treatment of infants with solid tumors, and her clinical work will continue this year with the Rare Tumors Program at MSK. Dr. Cabric is committed to her research in early-life immune development and age-dependent differences in anti-tumor immune responses. Her overarching career goal is to become a physician- scientist, elucidating novel anti-tumor immune pathways that will guide the development of novel immunotherapies for the effective treatment of pediatric solid tumors.

Current Research

Dr. Cabric continues her mentorship under physician-scientist Chrysothemis Brown, MBBS, PhD, where her research focuses on understanding age-dependent differences in tumor immune responses, with a particular concentration on the developing infant immune system and mechanisms of immune tolerance. The early-life period represents an important developmental stage for establishing immune tolerance to both self and harmless non-self (or foreign) antigens, in order to protect against harmful inflammation. Dr. Cabric’s work in the Brown Lab has focused on uncovering the critical cellular mechanisms underlying early-life immune tolerance, especially on how the immune system establishes tolerance to the foods that we eat. She is now applying these fundamental principles to studying how the immune system in early life suppresses effective tumor immune responses against pediatric solid tumors, with a specific goal of understanding the immune landscape of hepatoblastoma, the most common liver tumor of childhood.