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. Lee JC, Fong L. Agonizing over the Stimulatory Immune Checkpoint ICOS. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 09 01; 28(17):3633-3635.  View on PubMed
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. Bellmunt J, de Wit R, Fradet Y, Climent MA, Petrylak DP, Lee JL, Fong L, Necchi A, Sternberg CN, O'Donnell PH, Powles T, Plimack ER, Bajorin DF, Balar AV, Castellano D, Choueiri TK, Culine S, Gerritsen W, Gurney H, Quinn DI, Vuky J, Vogelzang NJ, Cristescu R, Lunceford J, Saadatpour A, Loboda A, Ma J, Rajasagi M, Godwin JL, Homet Moreno B, Grivas P. Putative Biomarkers of Clinical Benefit With Pembrolizumab in Advanced Urothelial Cancer: Results from the KEYNOTE-045 and KEYNOTE-052 Landmark Trials. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 05 13; 28(10):2050-2060.  View on PubMed
  5. Cabana MD, LeCroy MN, Menard-Livingston A, Rodgers CRR, McKean M, Caughey AB, Fong L, Lynch S, Wong A, Leong R, Boushey HA, Hilton JF. Effect of Early Infant Probiotic Supplementation on Eczema, Asthma, and Rhinitis at 7 Years of Age. Pediatrics. 2022 05 01; 149(5).  View on PubMed
  6. de Kouchkovsky I, Rao A, Carneiro BA, Zhang L, Lewis C, Phone A, Small EJ, Friedlander T, Fong L, Paris PL, Ryan CJ, Szmulewitz RZ, Aggarwal R. A Phase Ib/II Study of the CDK4/6 Inhibitor Ribociclib in Combination with Docetaxel plus Prednisone in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 04 14; 28(8):1531-1539.  View on PubMed
  7. Perez RK, Gordon MG, Subramaniam M, Kim MC, Hartoularos GC, Targ S, Sun Y, Ogorodnikov A, Bueno R, Lu A, Thompson M, Rappoport N, Dahl A, Lanata CM, Matloubian M, Maliskova L, Kwek SS, Li T, Slyper M, Waldman J, Dionne D, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Fong L, Dall'Era M, Balliu B, Regev A, Yazdany J, Criswell LA, Zaitlen N, Ye CJ. Single-cell RNA-seq reveals cell type-specific molecular and genetic associations to lupus. Science. 2022 04 08; 376(6589):eabf1970.  View on PubMed
  8. Natesan D, Zhang L, Martell HJ, Jindal T, Devine P, Stohr B, Espinosa-Mendez C, Grenert J, Van Ziffle J, Joseph N, Umetsu S, Onodera C, Turski M, Chan E, Desai A, Aggarwal R, Wong A, Porten S, Chou J, Friedlander T, Fong L, Small EJ, Sweet-Cordero A, Koshkin VS. APOBEC Mutational Signature and Tumor Mutational Burden as Predictors of Clinical Outcomes and Treatment Response in Patients With Advanced Urothelial Cancer. Front Oncol. 2022; 12:816706.  View on PubMed
  9. Augustin RC, Leone RD, Naing A, Fong L, Bao R, Luke JJ. Next steps for clinical translation of adenosine pathway inhibition in cancer immunotherapy. J Immunother Cancer. 2022 02; 10(2).  View on PubMed
  10. Oh DY, Fong L. Cytotoxic CD4+ T cells in cancer: Expanding the immune effector toolbox. Immunity. 2021 12 14; 54(12):2701-2711.  View on PubMed
  11. Oh DY, Fong L, Newell EW, Turk MJ, Chi H, Chang HY, Satpathy AT, Fairfax B, Silva-Santos B, Lantz O. Toward a better understanding of T cells in cancer. Cancer Cell. 2021 12 13; 39(12):1549-1552.  View on PubMed
  12. Zhao N, Bardine C, Lourenço AL, Wang YH, Huang Y, Cleary SJ, Wilson DM, Oh DY, Fong L, Looney MR, Evans MJ, Craik CS. In Vivo Measurement of Granzyme Proteolysis from Activated Immune Cells with PET. ACS Cent Sci. 2021 Oct 27; 7(10):1638-1649.  View on PubMed
  13. Pachynski RK, Morishima C, Szmulewitz R, Harshman L, Appleman L, Monk P, Bitting RL, Kucuk O, Millard F, Seigne JD, Fling SP, Maecker HT, Duault C, Ramchurren N, Hess B, D'Amico L, Lacroix A, Kaiser JC, Morre M, Grégoire A, Cheever M, Yu EY, Fong L. IL-7 expands lymphocyte populations and enhances immune responses to sipuleucel-T in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). J Immunother Cancer. 2021 08; 9(8).  View on PubMed
  14. Pollock Y, Zhang L, Kenfield SA, Van Blarigan EL, Rodvelt T, Rabow M, Macaire G, Weinberg R, Topp K, Friedlander T, Lin A, Fong L, Kim W, Ma B, Hough J, Lee M, Paciorek A, Ryan CJ, Chan JM, Small E, Aggarwal R. A multidisciplinary team-based approach with lifestyle modification and symptom management to address the impact of androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer: A randomized phase II study. Urol Oncol. 2021 10; 39(10):730.e9-730.e15.  View on PubMed
  15. Drake CG, Pachynski RK, Subudhi SK, McNeel DG, Antonarakis ES, Bauer TM, Lauer P, Brockstedt D, Patricia D, Wade M, Zudaire E, Bandyopadhyay N, Parasrampuria DA, Girgis S, Mason GE, Knoblauch RE, Stone N, Infante JR, Gottardis MM, Fong L. Safety and preliminary immunogenicity of JNJ-64041809, a live-attenuated, double-deleted Listeria monocytogenes-based immunotherapy, in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2022 02; 25(2):219-228.  View on PubMed
  16. Fong L, Morris MJ, Sartor O, Higano CS, Pagliaro L, Alva A, Appleman LJ, Tan W, Vaishampayan U, Porcu R, Tayama D, Kadel EE, Yuen KC, Datye A, Armstrong AJ, Petrylak DP. A Phase Ib Study of Atezolizumab with Radium-223 Dichloride in Men with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2021 09 01; 27(17):4746-4756.  View on PubMed
  17. Dang K, Castello G, Clarke SC, Li Y, Balasubramani A, Boudreau A, Davison L, Harris KE, Pham D, Sankaran P, Ugamraj HS, Deng R, Kwek S, Starzinski A, Iyer S, van Schooten W, Schellenberger U, Sun W, Trinklein ND, Buelow R, Buelow B, Fong L, Dalvi P. Attenuating CD3 affinity in a PSMAxCD3 bispecific antibody enables killing of prostate tumor cells with reduced cytokine release. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 06; 9(6).  View on PubMed
  18. Simonds EF, Lu ED, Badillo O, Karimi S, Liu EV, Tamaki W, Rancan C, Downey KM, Stultz J, Sinha M, McHenry LK, Nasholm NM, Chuntova P, Sundström A, Genoud V, Shahani SA, Wang LD, Brown CE, Walker PR, Swartling FJ, Fong L, Okada H, Weiss WA, Hellström M. Deep immune profiling reveals targetable mechanisms of immune evasion in immune checkpoint inhibitor-refractory glioblastoma. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 06; 9(6).  View on PubMed
  19. Sinha M, Zhang L, Subudhi S, Chen B, Marquez J, Liu EV, Allaire K, Cheung A, Ng S, Nguyen C, Friedlander TW, Aggarwal R, Spitzer M, Allison JP, Small EJ, Sharma P, Fong L. Pre-existing immune status associated with response to combination of sipuleucel-T and ipilimumab in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 05; 9(5).  View on PubMed
  20. de Kouchkovsky I, Zhang L, Philip EJ, Wright F, Kim DM, Natesan D, Kwon D, Ho H, Ho S, Chan E, Porten SP, Wong AC, Desai A, Huang FW, Chou J, Oh DY, Pruthi RS, Fong L, Small EJ, Friedlander TW, Koshkin VS. TERT promoter mutations and other prognostic factors in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma treated with an immune checkpoint inhibitor. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 05; 9(5).  View on PubMed

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