Rate My Professor Kirsten Ward Hartstonge

Kirsten Ward Hartstonge is a Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Health Sciences Division, University of Otago, working in the Kemp Lab. She earned her PGDipSci in 2013 and PhD from 2014 to 2017 at the University of Otago, supported by the Lotteries Health Board PhD Scholarship in 2015 and other funding including the Todd Foundation Award for Excellence and Brenda Shore Award for Women in 2014. Her doctoral research focused on immune cell interplay in colorectal cancer prognosis. Prior to her PhD, she held a summer studentship scholarship in 2013 at the Translational Centre for Cancer Research. Following her doctorate, she secured competitive postdoctoral fellowships, including the Cancer Research Trust New Zealand John Gavin Postdoctoral Fellowship in June 2021, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in December 2018, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Canadian Association of Gastroenterology Postdoctoral Fellowship in April 2018.

Ward Hartstonge's research specializes in human immunology, particularly T cell heterogeneity, regulatory T cells, and their roles in cancer immunobiology and autoimmune diseases like colorectal cancer and type 1 diabetes. She utilizes high-dimensional flow cytometry and mass cytometry to dissect immune cell populations in tumors and patient cohorts. Notable publications include 'Ustekinumab for type 1 diabetes in adolescents: a multicenter, double-blind, randomized phase 2 trial' (Nature Medicine, 2024), 'Tonic-signaling chimeric antigen receptors drive human regulatory T cell exhaustion' (PNAS, 2023), 'Guidelines for standardizing T-cell cytometry assays to link biomarkers, mechanisms, and disease outcomes in type 1 diabetes' (European Journal of Immunology, 2022), 'High-Dimensional Mass Cytometric Analysis Reveals an Increase in Effector Regulatory T Cells as a Distinguishing Feature of Colorectal Tumors' (Journal of Immunology, 2019), 'Inclusion of BLIMP-1+ effector regulatory T cells improves the Immunoscore in a cohort of New Zealand colorectal cancer patients: a pilot study' (OncoImmunology, 2017), and 'Telomere profiles and tumor-associated macrophages with immunohistochemistry-defined clinicopathological features can predict prognosis in glioblastoma' (Modern Pathology, 2016). Her publications have accumulated over 2,180 citations. She has received awards such as the 2023 Australasian Society for Immunology Women's Initiative Award, New Zealand Society for Immunology Buck Award (2017), New Zealand Society of Oncology Young Researcher Award (2016), and multiple presentation and travel awards. Ward Hartstonge serves on the Early Career Researcher Editorial Board for Immunotherapy Advances and was a co-investigator on a 2023 Marsden Fund grant.