Rongze “Olivia” Lu, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery, UCSF Biography Rongze “Olivia” Lu, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF. Her research interests include immunotherapy, the tumor microenvironment, and the cross-talk between cancer and immune cells. Her work focuses on uncovering mechanisms of immune suppression and evasion in the brain tumor microenvironment, aiming to develop novel immunotherapies for brain cancer. She previously identified protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) as a regulator of T cell suppression in multiple tumor models, leading to a Phase II NCI trial of a PP2A inhibitor for recurrent glioblastoma. Dr. Lu earned her doctorate in cancer immunology from the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope, followed by postdoctoral training at Genentech. She later led discovery programs at MedImmune/AstraZeneca and AbbVie and served as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.