Research Summary

My research focuses on immunotherapy in cancer with a special focus on skin cancers such as melanoma. I have designed and conducted numerous Phase I and II clinical trials. A collaboration with Dr Richard Heller has resulted in intratumoral IL12 as a treatment for melanoma. At UCSF, I co-direct the melanoma program and am the PI of several early phase and melanoma specific clinical trials as well as collaborating with my colleagues Michael Rosenblum, Max Krummel, Matt Spitzer and Jeff Bluestone at UCSF as well as other national experts in melanoma patients progressing on immunotherapy. One of the areas I am interested in is immunotherapy with PD-1 antibodies and in understanding resistance to PD-1 especially site specific immunity.

Education

1987-1990, Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of F. Merlin Bumpus, PhD and Ahsan Husain, PhD, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
1990-1994, Research Assistant Staff, Laboratory of Loren Field, PhD, Krannert Institute of Cardiology. Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN
1994-1997, Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine, Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN
1997-2000, Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Honors & Awards

  • 1986
    Honors in Pediatrics, Government Medical College, Nagpur, India
  • 2000
    Young Investigator Award, American Society for Clinical Oncology for project "Regulation of mRNA stability by Elongation factor I."
  • 2005-2007
    Clinical Trial Award: Highest Number of Patients Enrolled in clinical trials at Moffitt Cancer Center
  • 2007-2010
    Best Doctors in America Award, Castle Connolly

Selected Publications

  1. Wong P, Pollini T, Hernandez S, Tao S, Qiao G, Amouzegar A, Bol GM, Daud AI, Tao DL, Tsai KK, Lee J, Maker AV. The paradox of escalating immunotherapy for uveal melanoma liver metastases. HPB (Oxford). 2026 Jun 04. View on PubMed
  2. Boutin CA, Callegari M, Florescu D, Nguyen MH, Kaul D, Avery R, Chong P, Fisher C, Limaye AP, Clough L, Pergam SA, Green M, Michaels MG, Danziger-Isakov LA, Angarone M, Keefer L, Daud A, Lorenzo-Redondo R, Tan M, Ison MG. A phase 2 multicenter, prospective, randomized, double-blind study to assess the clinical and antiviral efficacy and safety of nitazoxanide for the treatment of norovirus in hematopoietic stem cell and solid organ transplant recipients. Am J Transplant. 2026 May 22. View on PubMed
  3. Sweis RF, Long GV, Daud A, Stemmer SM, Jimeno A, Perets R, Kummar S, Patel MR, Khattak A, Abadier M, Van L, Guo R, Do KT, Sullivan RJ. Lipid Nanoparticle-encapsulated mRNA-2752 Encoding Human OX40L, IL-23, and IL-36γ Plus Durvalumab Induces an Immunostimulatory Effect Within the Tumor Microenvironment in Patients with Advanced Solid Tumors. Clin Cancer Res. 2026 May 18. View on PubMed
  4. Sleeper O, Fortino J, Cho NW, Daud AI, Tsai KK, Lee JC, Alvarado M, Maker AV, Liu L, Kim C, Chan JW. Longitudinal tumor-informed ctDNA monitoring for recurrence and treatment response in melanoma. BMC Cancer. 2026 Apr 02; 26(1). View on PubMed
  5. Pan S, Fernández-Maestre I, Chang KC, Van Haver S, Wereski MG, Haugh AM, Tsai KK, Daud AI, Bowman RL, Vasudevan HN, Levine RL, Abate AR. PURE-seq integrates FACS and PIP-seq for single-cell genomics of ultra-rare cells. Nat Commun. 2026 Jan 21; 17(1):1408. View on PubMed
  6. Milhem MM, Zakharia Y, Davar D, Buchbinder EI, Medina T, Daud A, Ribas A, Chmielowski B, Niu J, Gibney GT, Margolin K, Olszanski AJ, Mehmi I, Sato T, Shaheen M, Zhao L, Kelley H, Liu H, Kumar S, Bobilev D, Krieg AM, Wooldridge JE, Kirkwood JM. Intratumoral vidutolimod as monotherapy or in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with programmed cell death 1 blockade-resistant melanoma: Final analysis from a phase 1b study. Cancer. 2025 Aug 01; 131(15):e70022. View on PubMed
  7. Milhem MM, Wise-Draper TM, Chandra S, Hanna GJ, Laux DE, Medina TM, Ansstas G, Daud A, Kelly CM, O'Day SJ, Perez CA, Wong MK, Friedlander PA, Kristedja TS, Burgess MA, Cowey CL, Hanks BA, Weight RM, Daniel WL, Feltner DE, Mix S, Sindelar L, Bexon AS, Bexon MF, Michel RE, Bhatia S. Phase 1b/2 study evaluating safety, efficacy and immune effects of TLR9 agonist cavrotolimod with anti-PD-1 antibodies among patients with advanced solid tumors. J Immunother Cancer. 2025 Jul 25; 13(7). View on PubMed
  8. Mahuron KM, Shahid O, Sao P, Wu C, Haugh AM, Huppert LA, Levine LS, Lowe MM, Alvarado M, Micu M, Tsai KK, Chow M, Singer M, Schenkel JM, Sharpe AH, Rosenblum MD, Pauken KE, Daud AI. Single-Cell Analyses Reveal a Functionally Heterogeneous Exhausted CD8+ T-cell Subpopulation That Is Correlated with Response to Checkpoint Therapy in Melanoma. Cancer Res. 2025 Apr 15; 85(8):1424-1440. View on PubMed
  9. Tsai KK, Chang AY, Abouzeid CM, Aras MA, Fang Q, Bibby D, Haghighat L, Hilton JF, Daud AI, Schiller NB. Longitudinal Evaluation of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Induced Fatigue Syndrome by Rest, Stress, and Speckle-Tracking Strain Echocardiography. Echocardiography. 2025 04; 42(4):e70158. View on PubMed
  10. Haugh AM, Daud AI. Distinguishing between help and harm: Helper T cell subsets and immune-related adverse events. J Clin Invest. 2024 10 15; 134(20). View on PubMed
  11. Long GV, Carlino MS, McNeil C, Ribas A, Gaudy-Marqueste C, Schachter J, Nyakas M, Kee D, Petrella TM, Blaustein A, Lotem M, Arance AM, Daud AI, Hamid O, Larkin J, Yao L, Singh R, Lal R, Robert C. Pembrolizumab versus ipilimumab for advanced melanoma: 10-year follow-up of the phase III KEYNOTE-006 study. Ann Oncol. 2024 12; 35(12):1191-1199. View on PubMed
  12. Quandt Z, Jacob S, Fadlullah MZH, Wu C, Wu C, Huppert L, Levine LS, Sison P, Tsai KK, Chow M, Kang JH, Hwang J, Lee JC, Oglesby A, Venegas J, Brintz BJ, Tan AC, Anderson MS, Rosenblum MD, Young A, Daud AI. Phase II trial of pembrolizumab, ipilimumab, and aspirin in melanoma: clinical outcomes and translational predictors of response. BJC Rep. 2024 Jun 24; 2(1):46. View on PubMed
  13. Haugh AM, Osorio RC, Francois RA, Tawil ME, Tsai KK, Tetzlaff M, Daud A, Vasudevan HN. Targeted DNA Sequencing of Cutaneous Melanoma Identifies Prognostic and Predictive Alterations. Cancers (Basel). 2024 Mar 29; 16(7). View on PubMed
  14. Wong P, Wisneski AD, Tsai KK, Chang TT, Hirose K, Nakakura EK, Daud AI, Maker AV, Corvera CU. Metastatic melanoma to small bowel: metastasectomy is supported in the era of immunotherapy and checkpoint inhibitors. World J Surg Oncol. 2024 Mar 11; 22(1):77. View on PubMed
  15. Haugh AM, Daud AI. Current Role and Status for Intratumoral Injection Therapies in Metastatic Melanoma. Cancer J. 2024 Mar-Apr 01; 30(2):108-112. View on PubMed
  16. Feichtenschlager V, Chen L, Zheng YJ, Ho W, Sanlorenzo M, Vujic I, Fewings E, Lee A, Chen C, Callanan C, Lin K, Qu T, Hohlova D, Vujic M, Hwang Y, Lai K, Chen S, Nguyen T, Muñoz DP, Kohwi Y, Posch C, Daud A, Rappersberger K, Kohwi-Shigematsu T, Coppé JP, Ortiz-Urda S. The therapeutically actionable long non-coding RNA 'T-RECS' is essential to cancer cells' survival in NRAS/MAPK-driven melanoma. Mol Cancer. 2024 02 22; 23(1):40. View on PubMed
  17. Haugh A, Daud AI. Therapeutic Strategies in BRAF V600 Wild-Type Cutaneous Melanoma. Am J Clin Dermatol. 2024 May; 25(3):407-419. View on PubMed
  18. Feichtenschlager V, Chen L, Zheng YJ, Ho W, Sanlorenzo M, Vujic I, Fewings E, Lee A, Chen C, Callanan C, Lin K, Qu T, Hohlova D, Vujic M, Hwang Y, Lai K, Chen S, Nguyen T, Muñoz DP, Kohwi Y, Posch C, Daud A, Rappersberger K, Kohwi-Shigematsu T, Coppé JP, Ortiz-Urda S. The therapeutically actionable long non-coding RNA 'T-RECS' is essential to cancer cells' survival in NRAS/MAPK-driven melanoma. Res Sq. 2023 Dec 01. View on PubMed
  19. Standiford TC, Patel NN, Singh A, Gochman G, Jamie Wu T, Daud AI, Goldberg AN. Pembrolizumab-associated chronic rhinosinusitis: A new endotype and management considerations. Int Forum Allergy Rhinol. 2023 12; 13(12):2248-2251. View on PubMed
  20. Haugh A, Daud A. Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Blockade: IFNγ or MHC-I? Cancer Immunol Res. 2023 07 05; 11(7):864. View on PubMed

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