Rebecca (Becky) Richards, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Division of Hematology, Oncology, Transplant, and Cellular Therapy, and Joshua Brockman, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, received a Borden Immunotherapy Pilot Grant from UW Carbone Cancer Center in the amount of $50,000. The year-long study, “Defining the Role of CAR T-Cell Forces in Signaling and Cytotoxicity,” will run from November 2025 through November 2026. The project will expand on their team’s previous collaborative work to identify CAR-mediated forces as novel correlates of CAR T-cell activity. They will define how CAR T-cell mechanobiology varies by tumor stiffness and will engineer CAR T-cells with the goal of modulating mechanical forces.