The Maker laboratory focuses on studying tumor biology in order to better understand markers of malignant transformation and to create novel approaches to target cancer cell death. His team is researching the role of the immune system in cancer, specifically in gastrointestinal cancers that have metastasized and spread to the liver. Ajay Maker and his team are working towards identifying immunotherapeutic agents and novel combination therapies for these conditions and initiating clinical trials to investigate them using the latest and most advanced laboratory techniques. His research has been supported by foundations, pharmaceutical companies, the Department of Defense, and he was awarded the prestigious NIH MERIT award by the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health to study the immunobiology of GI cancers. An additional focus of his research is in the early detection of pancreatic cancer by identifying pancreatic cysts at risk for malignant transformation. As a leader in the research of novel biomarkers for this disease, he has identified predictive biosignatures of dysplasia from pancreatic cyst fluid.