Lena Bhatt

Lena Bhatt studies whether the underlying etiology of HCC (viral, NASH, alcohol) predicts response to systemic therapies including immunotherapy. Her research demonstrated that patients with NASH-associated HCC may derive different benefit from atezolizumab-bevacizumab compared to viral HCC patients, potentially due to distinct immune microenvironments. She has characterized the molecular and immunological differences between NASH-HCC and other HCC etiologies that could explain differential IO outcomes. Her work is advancing etiology-stratified clinical trial design for HCC systemic therapy.