Research Summary

Lawrence Fong, MD, is the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor in Cancer Biology and leads the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at UCSF. He also co-directs the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at UCSF and co-leads the Cancer Immunology Program in the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is a physician-scientist in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology directing both a translational research program and a research lab. He has focused on cancer immunotherapy for over 20 years and has been involved in both pre-clinical and clinical studies of FDA-approved immunotherapies including sipuleucel-T and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Fong's research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that underlie clinical response and resistance to immunotherapies. This work includes tracking antigen-specific T cell responses in treated cancer patients and developing biomarkers that are associated with clinical outcomes. The Cancer Immunotherapy Program that he directs performs early phase and high risk clinical trials across different disease indications. This program also includes a translational laboratory that performs mechanistic studies on samples derived from patients undergoing treatment.

Research Funding

  • August 1, 2021 - July 31, 2028 - Determinants of response to cancer immunotherapy , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R35CA253175
  • March 1, 2021 - February 28, 2026 - Precision targeting of T cell cytotoxicity with PET , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA258297
  • September 23, 2019 - August 31, 2024 - Mechanisms of Exosome Driven Immunoregulation of Cancer Progression , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: U01CA244452
  • January 16, 2018 - December 31, 2023 - Determinants of prostate cancer sensitivity to PD-1 blockade , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA223484

Education

Columbia University, New York, NY, BA, 1984-1988, Pre-Med., Economics
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, MD, 1988-1992

Honors & Awards

  • 1990
    Stanford Alumni Medical Scholar
  • 1993
    Alpha Omega Alpha
  • 1997
    American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award
  • 1997
    American Cancer Society Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award
  • 1997
    American Association for Cancer Research AFLAC Award
  • 2002
    American Association for Cancer Research Scholar-in-Training Award
  • 2003
    V Foundation Scholar

Selected Publications

  1. Annapragada A, Sikora AG, Marathe H, Liu S, Demetriou M, Fong L, Gao J, Kufe D, Morris ZS, Vilar E, Sharon E, Hutson A, Odunsi K. The Cancer Moonshot Immuno-Oncology Translational Network (IOTN) at age 5: Accelerating Cancer Immunotherapies. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2023 Aug 12.  View on PubMed
  2. Wu K, Fong L. CD4+ T cells help myeloid-mediated killing of immune-evasive tumors. Trends Cancer. 2023 Oct; 9(10):777-779.  View on PubMed
  3. Gutierrez M, Lam WS, Hellmann MD, Gubens MA, Aggarwal C, Tan DSW, Felip E, Chiu JWY, Lee JS, Yang JC, Garon EB, Finocchiaro G, Ahn MJ, Luft A, Landers GA, Basso A, Ma H, Kobie J, Palcza J, Cristescu R, Fong L, Snyder A, Yuan J, Herbst RS. Biomarker-directed, pembrolizumab-based combination therapy in non-small cell lung cancer: phase 2 KEYNOTE-495/KeyImPaCT trial interim results. Nat Med. 2023 07; 29(7):1718-1727.  View on PubMed
  4. Tanaka M, Lum L, Hu K, Ledezma-Soto C, Samad B, Superville D, Ng K, Adams Z, Kersten K, Fong L, Combes AJ, Krummel M, Reeves M. Tumor cell heterogeneity drives spatial organization of the intratumoral immune response in squamous cell skin carcinoma. bioRxiv. 2023 Jun 21.  View on PubMed
  5. Li M, Wong D, Sack JS, Vogel AS, Hodi FS, Fong L, Lai JC, Grover S, Zucker SD. Early Liver Specialist Consultation is Associated With Faster Biochemical Resolution of Severe Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Induced Hepatitis. J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2023 06; 21(6):617-626.e3.  View on PubMed
  6. Chang R, Gulley JL, Fong L. Vaccinating against cancer: getting to prime time. J Immunother Cancer. 2023 06; 11(6).  View on PubMed
  7. Raj N, Chan JA, Wang SJ, Aggarwal RR, Calabrese S, DeMore A, Fong L, Grabowsky J, Hope TA, Kolli KP, Mulvey CK, Munster PN, Perez K, Punn S, Reidy-Lagunes D, Von Fedak S, Zhang L, Bergsland EK. Pembrolizumab alone and pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy in previously treated, extrapulmonary poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas. Br J Cancer. 2023 08; 129(2):291-300.  View on PubMed
  8. Jindal T, Zhang L, Deshmukh P, Reyes K, Chan E, Kumar V, Zhu X, Maldonado E, Feng S, Johnson M, Angelidakis A, Kwon D, Desai A, Borno HT, Bose R, Wong A, Hong J, Carroll P, Meng M, Porten S, Aggarwal R, Small EJ, Fong L, Chou J, Friedlander T, de Kouchkovsky I, Koshkin VS. Impact of Squamous Histology on Clinical Outcomes and Molecular Profiling in Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma PatientsTreated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors or Enfortumab Vedotin. Clin Genitourin Cancer. 2023 May 17.  View on PubMed
  9. Jindal T, Zhu X, Bose R, Kumar V, Maldonado E, Deshmukh P, Shipp C, Feng S, Johnson MS, Angelidakis A, Kwon D, Borno HT, de Kouchkovsky I, Desai A, Aggarwal R, Fong L, Small EJ, Wong A, Porten S, Chou J, Friedlander T, Koshkin VS. Somatic alterations of TP53 and MDM2 associated with response to enfortumab vedotin in patients with advanced urothelial cancer. Front Oncol. 2023; 13:1161089.  View on PubMed
  10. Conway JR, Tewari AK, Camp SY, Han S, Crowdis J, He MX, Nyame YA, AlDubayan SH, Schultz N, Szallasi Z, Pomerantz MM, Freedman ML, Fong L, Nelson PS, Brown M, Salari K, Allen EV. Analysis of evolutionary dynamics and clonal architecture in prostate cancer. bioRxiv. 2023 Mar 25.  View on PubMed
  11. Rahim MK, Okholm TLH, Jones KB, McCarthy EE, Liu CC, Yee JL, Tamaki SJ, Marquez DM, Tenvooren I, Wai K, Cheung A, Davidson BR, Johri V, Samad B, O'Gorman WE, Krummel MF, van Zante A, Combes AJ, Angelo M, Fong L, Algazi AP, Ha P, Spitzer MH. Dynamic CD8+ T cell responses to cancer immunotherapy in human regional lymph nodes are disrupted in metastatic lymph nodes. Cell. 2023 03 16; 186(6):1127-1143.e18.  View on PubMed
  12. Rancan C, Arias-Badia M, Dogra P, Chen B, Aran D, Yang H, Luong D, Ilano A, Li J, Chang H, Kwek SS, Zhang L, Lanier LL, Meng MV, Farber DL, Fong L. Exhausted intratumoral Vδ2- γδ T cells in human kidney cancer retain effector function. Nat Immunol. 2023 04; 24(4):612-624.  View on PubMed
  13. Sinha M, Betts C, Zhang L, Griffith MJ, Solman I, Chen B, Liu E, Tamaki W, Stultz J, Marquez J, Sivagnanam S, Cheung A, Pener D, Fahlman A, Taber E, Lerner K, Crocker M, Todd K, Rajagopalan B, Ware C, Bridge M, Vo J, Dragomanovich H, Sudduth-Klinger J, Vaccaro G, Lopez CD, Tempero M, Coussens LM, Fong L. Modulation of myeloid and T cells in vivo by Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. J Immunother Cancer. 2023 01; 11(1).  View on PubMed
  14. Kwon DH, Shakhnazaryan N, Shui D, Hong JC, Mohamad O, de Kouchkovsky I, Borno HT, Bose R, Chou J, Desai A, Fong L, Friedlander TW, Koshkin VS, Aggarwal RR, Feng FY, Hope TA, Small EJ. Serial stereotactic body radiation therapy for oligometastatic prostate cancer detected by novel PET-based radiotracers. Urol Oncol. 2023 03; 41(3):145.e7-145.e15.  View on PubMed
  15. Sjöström M, Zhao SG, Levy S, Zhang M, Ning Y, Shrestha R, Lundberg A, Herberts C, Foye A, Aggarwal R, Hua JT, Li H, Bergamaschi A, Maurice-Dror C, Maheshwari A, Chen S, Ng SWS, Ye W, Petricca J, Fraser M, Chesner L, Perry MD, Moreno-Rodriguez T, Chen WS, Alumkal JJ, Chou J, Morgans AK, Beer TM, Thomas GV, Gleave M, Lloyd P, Phillips T, McCarthy E, Haffner MC, Zoubeidi A, Annala M, Reiter RE, Rettig MB, Witte ON, Fong L, Bose R, Huang FW, Luo J, Bjartell A, Lang JM, Mahajan NP, Lara PN, Evans CP, Tran PT, Posadas EM, He C, Cui XL, Huang J, Zwart W, Gilbert LA, Maher CA, Boutros PC, Chi KN, Ashworth A, Small EJ, He HH, Wyatt AW, Quigley DA, Feng FY. The 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine Landscape of Prostate Cancer. Cancer Res. 2022 11 02; 82(21):3888-3902.  View on PubMed
  16. Keenan BP, McCarthy EE, Ilano A, Yang H, Zhang L, Allaire K, Fan Z, Li T, Lee DS, Sun Y, Cheung A, Luong D, Chang H, Chen B, Marquez J, Sheldon B, Kelley RK, Ye CJ, Fong L. Circulating monocytes associated with anti-PD-1 resistance in human biliary cancer induce T cell paralysis. Cell Rep. 2022 09 20; 40(12):111384.  View on PubMed
  17. Lee JC, Fong L. Agonizing over the Stimulatory Immune Checkpoint ICOS. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 09 01; 28(17):3633-3635.  View on PubMed
  18. Sugie T, Salgado R, Fong L. Editorial: Advancements in immunology and immunotherapy for breast cancer. Front Oncol. 2022; 12:979806.  View on PubMed
  19. Kwon H, Schafer JM, Song NJ, Kaneko S, Li A, Xiao T, Ma A, Allen C, Das K, Zhou L, Riesenberg B, Chang Y, Weltge P, Velegraki M, Oh DY, Fong L, Ma Q, Sundi D, Chung D, Li X, Li Z. Androgen conspires with the CD8+ T cell exhaustion program and contributes to sex bias in cancer. Sci Immunol. 2022 07; 7(73):eabq2630.  View on PubMed
  20. Stein MN, Fong L, Tutrone R, Mega A, Lam ET, Parsi M, Vangala S, Gutierrez AA, Haas NB. ADXS31142 Immunotherapy ± Pembrolizumab Treatment for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: Open-Label Phase I/II KEYNOTE-046 Study. Oncologist. 2022 06 08; 27(6):453-461.  View on PubMed

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