When Corina Amor Vegas was just 7 years old, her mother, Esperanza, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Esperanza鈥檚 treatment would take over a decade. However, after participating in a clinical trial for a new cancer drug, she entered remission. Today, Amor Vegas is happy to say her mother is doing 鈥渧ery well.鈥� The clinical trial didn鈥檛 just save Esperanza鈥檚 life. It also made an indelible impression on Corina, leading her to become a medical student and later a fundamental biologist doing research with profound implications for health and medicine.
鈥淚t really made a mark on me,鈥� Amor Vegas says. 鈥淚 saw, for the first time, the value of basic research. If you develop a new therapy, and it is successful, it can impact not only a patient鈥檚 life, but their family as well.鈥�
Amor Vegas now heads a lab at 黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL) that researches cellular aging. They aim to discover potential treatments for age-related diseases. In doing this, they hope to improve human health鈥攕pecifically, to help people live out their later years in comfort, free from painful disease. 鈥淭he goal is not to live forever, or even to expand lifespan,鈥� Amor Vegas explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 to increase healthspan鈥攖he number of years that we live in good health.鈥�
Amor Vegas discusses her work during an installment of CSHL鈥檚 public lecture series, Cocktails & Chromosomes.
Though Amor Vegas is only four years out of grad school, she has already made significant breakthroughs, including the discovery that synthetically engineered white blood cells called CAR T cells can be reprogrammed to eliminate senescent cells. Senescence occurs when damaged or aged cells evade the immune system鈥檚 attempt to clear them from the body. The cell state is connected to several age-related conditions, including Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
鈥淭hese conditions can be severely debilitating,鈥� Amor Vegas says. 鈥淵ou suffer them for long periods, and your quality of life continues to decrease. It鈥檚 painful for the person with the disease. It鈥檚 painful for the family. If we could make an impact here, we could improve quality of life for millions of people.鈥�
Fighting disease, not time
Originally from Spain, Amor Vegas entered medical school in Madrid at age 18, spurred by her love for chemistry and biology. While she enjoyed working with patients, she found herself frustrated that many conditions 鈥渄on鈥檛 really have any curative treatment,鈥� she says. 鈥淎 lot of medicine is just handling the symptoms and making the patient feel better, which is important but doesn鈥檛 really 鈥榝ix鈥� the problem.鈥�
While getting her medical degree, Amor Vegas sought out opportunities to do research on the side. In 2014, she applied for a summer internship with Frederick Alt, a professor at Harvard Medical School and then-director of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital. Alt, impressed by Amor Vegas鈥� 鈥渙utstanding record,鈥� accepted her into the program. 鈥淪he was very impressive in the four months she spent here,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淚 certainly expected her to go on to a significant career as an independent scientist.鈥�
The experience convinced Amor Vegas to move to the United States and pursue her Ph.D. at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. There, she worked in the lab of Scott Lowe, chair of the Center鈥檚 Cancer Biology and Genetics Program and former deputy director of CSHL鈥檚 Cancer Center. Amor Vegas also got to work with Michel Sadelain, who pioneered the use of CAR T cells to treat cancer. CAR T cell therapy involves removing a patient鈥檚 natural T cells and genetically re-engineering them to produce proteins that kill cancer cells.
In Lowe鈥檚 lab, Amor Vegas became interested in cellular senescence. Cells get senescent as a stress response to high levels of damage. Normally, cells will secrete inflammatory proteins as a cue to the immune system that something鈥檚 wrong. In young, healthy people, the immune system responds by eliminating the damaged cells. However, as we age, our immune system becomes less responsive. Senescent cells accumulate in the body, causing inflammation, damaging tissue, and eating up nutrients needed by healthier cells.
While reading up on senescence, Amor Vegas noticed some large gaps in the field. First, scientists didn鈥檛 have a good surface marker to identify these cells. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a problem,鈥� Amor Vegas says. 鈥淚f you know a good surface marker, you can isolate senescent cells, pull them out from tissue, and study their characteristics. Without that, you can鈥檛.鈥�
Second, no long-term therapy existed to clear senescent cells from the body. Amor Vegas wondered, if she found a good surface marker, could she go a step further? Could she engineer CAR T cells to recognize and target the damaged cells? 鈥淭his was an idea that I had entirely on my own,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t was novel, but kind of crazy.鈥� Amor Vegas鈥� colleagues were skeptical. They assumed CAR T cells that attacked senescent cells would simply be too toxic for the body. Amor Vegas says she was 鈥渟tubborn鈥� and decided to do the project anyway.
By 2017, she had identified the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) as a surface protein that senescent cells express. She then worked to engineer CAR T cells that would clear out senescent cells with those specific receptors. By 2020, her results were published in the esteemed journal .
Lowe, Amor Vegas鈥� mentor, reflects on the significance of their findings. 鈥淭he work represented a new way to eliminate senescent cells and the first effort to use CAR T cells outside cancer,鈥� he says. 鈥淐orina is a force of nature, and she was able to galvanize a team and advance the work to succession. She completed her Ph.D. in the shortest time of any student I have had.鈥�
After getting her degree in 2021, Amor Vegas decided that rather than work in someone else’s lab, she wanted to lead her own. Many fellows programs offer such opportunities to postdocs. Not so many extend the offer to graduate students. In Amor Vegas鈥� eyes, there were only a select few options. She applied for the CSHL Fellows Program, which allows early-career scientists to direct a research program with their own lab and technician while also getting mentorship from senior faculty members. In making the decision, she considered the career trajectories of program alumni.
鈥淢ost CSHL fellows have done tremendously well,鈥� she says. 鈥淎lmost all of them were still in academia, or if they had transitioned to industry, they had amazing jobs. That spoke to Cold Spring Harbor鈥檚 commitment to their Fellows Program and was one of the main reasons why it felt like the right place to do this.鈥�
Inspiring innovation in healthspan
Since coming to CSHL, Amor Vegas鈥� research has focused on cellular senescence in the context of aging. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a process we all go through, but we actually know quite little about it,鈥� she says. 鈥淢ost of what we know about this process comes from cancer research.鈥� Once again, she hopes to fill crucial gaps in biomedical knowledge.
In 2022, Amor Vegas received the U.S. National Institutes of Health Director鈥檚 Early Independence Award. The award provides promising early-career scientists with federal support to help fund their research. With this support, her new lab has already succeeded in using CAR T cells to eliminate senescent cells in models of fibrosis, cancer, and aging.
One major breakthrough showed that a single administration of can increase exercise capacity in aged mice and improve metabolic dysfunction in old mice as well as those on high-fat diets. Mice treated with CAR T cells live healthier for longer than those that haven鈥檛 received treatment.
Additionally, Amor Vegas’ team has tested their CAR T cells on human cells to make sure they鈥檙e safe and effective. Now, the lab hopes to find investors so it can begin clinical trials testing CAR T cells as therapeutics for diseases like liver fibrosis. Existing treatment options are limited, and the disease can be deadly.
Though most of her work has addressed physical aspects of aging, Amor Vegas is also in the middle of a project tackling cognitive aging. So far, the brain data is 鈥渟uper exciting,鈥� she says.
Amor Vegas鈥� lab is investigating how modified CAR T cells may be used to treat Alexander disease, a rare neurological disorder affecting the brain鈥檚 white matter. Video: Google DeepMind.
In 2024, Amor Vegas officially joined the CSHL faculty when she became an assistant professor. Lowe, who also began his independent career as a CSHL fellow, says it鈥檚 been 鈥渧ery satisfying to see Corina start her lab as a fellow and then rapidly be promoted to faculty.鈥�
Another big win followed in 2025, as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute named Amor Vegas a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, providing her lab up to $8.6 million for their research over the next 10 years. Despite this early success, Amor Vegas tries not to dwell on her accomplishments.
鈥淚 focus on my science, wake up in the morning, and do what I鈥檓 excited to do,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 think of the next step, not, 鈥榃here are we going to publish this? Are we going to get this big award?鈥� I want to do this because I like it. I could be a primary care doctor, and my life might be simpler, but I love what I do, and I try to enjoy that.鈥�
Written by: Margaret Osborne, Science Writer | [email protected] | 516-367-8455