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

  • September 23, 2019 - August 31, 2024 - Mechanisms of Exosome Driven Immunoregulation of Cancer Progression, Co-Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: U01CA244452
  • September 19, 2018 - August 31, 2023 - Molecular and immune drivers of immunotherapy responsiveness in prostate cancer, Co-Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: U01CA233100
  • January 16, 2018 - December 31, 2022 - Determinants of prostate cancer sensitivity to PD-1 blockade, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA223484
  • July 2, 2015 - June 30, 2020 - Immunotherapy of human bladder cancer, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA194511

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. Wustrack RL, Shao E, Sheridan J, Zimel M, Cho SJ, Horvai AE, Luong D, Kwek SS, Fong L, Okimoto RA Tumor morphology and location associate with immune cell composition in pleomorphic sarcoma.  View on PubMed
  2. How to turn up the heat on the cold immune microenvironment of metastatic prostate cancer.  View on PubMed
  3. Zhang L, Cham J, Cooley J, He T, Hagihara K, Yang H, Fan F, Cheung A, Thompson D, Kerns BJ, Fong L Cross-platform comparison of immune-related gene expression to assess intratumor immune responses following cancer immunotherapy.  View on PubMed
  4. Powles T, Atkins MB, Escudier B, Motzer RJ, Rini BI, Fong L, Joseph RW, Pal SK, Sznol M, Hainsworth J, Stadler WM, Hutson TE, Ravaud A, Bracarda S, Suarez C, Choueiri TK, Reeves J, Cohn A, Ding B, Leng N, Hashimoto K, Huseni M, Schiff C, McDermott DF Efficacy and Safety of Atezolizumab Plus Bevacizumab Following Disease Progression on Atezolizumab or Sunitinib Monotherapy in Patients with Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma in IMmotion150: A Randomized Phase 2 Clinical Trial.  View on PubMed
  5. He MX, Cuoco MS, Crowdis J, Bosma-Moody A, Zhang Z, Bi K, Kanodia A, Su MJ, Ku SY, Garcia MM, Sweet AR, Rodman C, DelloStritto L, Silver R, Steinharter J, Shah P, Izar B, Walk NC, Burke KP, Bakouny Z, Tewari AK, Liu D, Camp SY, Vokes NI, Salari K, Park J, Vigneau S, Fong L, Russo JW, Yuan X, Balk SP, Beltran H, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Regev A, Rotem A, Taplin ME, Van Allen EM Transcriptional mediators of treatment resistance in lethal prostate cancer.  View on PubMed
  6. Levy ES, Chang R, Zamecnik CR, Dhariwala MO, Fong L, Desai TA Multi-Immune Agonist Nanoparticle Therapy Stimulates Type I Interferons to Activate Antigen-Presenting Cells and Induce Antigen-Specific Antitumor Immunity.  View on PubMed
  7. Luke JJ, Barlesi F, Chung K, Tolcher AW, Kelly K, Hollebecque A, Le Tourneau C, Subbiah V, Tsai F, Kao S, Cassier PA, Khasraw M, Kindler HL, Fang H, Fan F, Allaire K, Patel M, Ye S, Chao DT, Henner WR, Hayflick JS, McDevitt MA, Fong L Phase I study of ABBV-428, a mesothelin-CD40 bispecific, in patients with advanced solid tumors.  View on PubMed
  8. Naidus E, Bouquet J, Oh DY, Looney TJ, Yang H, Fong L, Standifer NE, Zhang L Early changes in the circulating T cells are associated with clinical outcomes after PD-L1 blockade by durvalumab in advanced NSCLC patients.  View on PubMed
  9. Zhang L, Kandadi H, Yang H, Cham J, He T, Oh DY, Sheikh NA, Fong L Long-term Sculpting of the B-cell Repertoire following Cancer Immunotherapy in Patients Treated with Sipuleucel-T.  View on PubMed
  10. Wei J, Wang YH, Lee CY, Truillet C, Oh DY, Xu Y, Ruggero D, Flavell RR, VanBrocklin HF, Seo Y, Craik CS, Fong L, Wang CI, Evans MJ An Analysis of Isoclonal Antibody Formats Suggests a Role for Measuring PD-L1 with Low Molecular Weight PET Radiotracers.  View on PubMed
  11. Graff JN, Stein MN, Surana R, Al Rabadi L, Liu E, Fong L, Bailey S, Latour E, Newby TA, Moran AE, Beer TM Phase II Study of Ipilimumab in Men With Metastatic Prostate Cancer With an Incomplete Response to Androgen Deprivation Therapy.  View on PubMed
  12. Ko AH, Jordan AC, Tooker E, Lacey SF, Chang RB, Li Y, Venook AP, Tempero M, Damon L, Fong L, O'Hara MH, Levine BL, Melenhorst JJ, Plesa G, June CH, Beatty GL Dual Targeting of Mesothelin and CD19 with Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T Cells in Patients with Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer.  View on PubMed
  13. Zhao SG, Chen WS, Li H, Foye A, Zhang M, Sjöström M, Aggarwal R, Playdle D, Liao A, Alumkal JJ, Das R, Chou J, Hua JT, Barnard TJ, Bailey AM, Chow ED, Perry MD, Dang HX, Yang R, Moussavi-Baygi R, Zhang L, Alshalalfa M, Laura Chang S, Houlahan KE, Shiah YJ, Beer TM, Thomas G, Chi KN, Gleave M, Zoubeidi A, Reiter RE, Rettig MB, Witte O, Yvonne Kim M, Fong L, Spratt DE, Morgan TM, Bose R, Huang FW, Li H, Chesner L, Shenoy T, Goodarzi H, Asangani IA, Sandhu S, Lang JM, Mahajan NP, Lara PN, Evans CP, Febbo P, Batzoglou S, Knudsen KE, He HH, Huang J, Zwart W, Costello JF, Luo J, Tomlins SA, Wyatt AW, Dehm SM, Ashworth A, Gilbert LA, Boutros PC, Farh K, Chinnaiyan AM, Maher CA, Small EJ, Quigley DA, Feng FY The DNA methylation landscape of advanced prostate cancer.  View on PubMed
  14. Oh DY, Kwek SS, Raju SS, Li T, McCarthy E, Chow E, Aran D, Ilano A, Pai CS, Rancan C, Allaire K, Burra A, Sun Y, Spitzer MH, Mangul S, Porten S, Meng MV, Friedlander TW, Ye CJ, Fong L Intratumoral CD4+ T Cells Mediate Anti-tumor Cytotoxicity in Human Bladder Cancer.  View on PubMed
  15. Annapragada A, Sikora A, Bollard C, Conejo-Garcia J, Cruz CR, Demehri S, Demetriou M, Demirdjian L, Fong L, Horowitz M, Hutson A, Kadash-Edmondson K, Kufe D, Lipkin S, Liu S, McCarthy C, Morgan M, Morris Z, Pan Y, Pasquini M, Schoenberger S, Van Allen E, Vilar E, Xing Y, Zha W, Odunsi A Cancer Moonshot Immuno-Oncology Translational Network (IOTN): accelerating the clinical translation of basic discoveries for improving immunotherapy and immunoprevention of cancer.  View on PubMed
  16. Madan RA, Antonarakis ES, Drake CG, Fong L, Yu EY, McNeel DG, Lin DW, Chang NN, Sheikh NA, Gulley JL Putting the Pieces Together: Completing the Mechanism of Action Jigsaw for Sipuleucel-T.  View on PubMed
  17. Algazi AP, Twitty CG, Tsai KK, Le M, Pierce R, Browning E, Hermiz R, Canton DA, Bannavong D, Oglesby A, Francisco M, Fong L, Pittet MJ, Arlauckas SP, Garris C, Levine LP, Bifulco C, Ballesteros-Merino C, Bhatia S, Gargosky S, Andtbacka RHI, Fox BA, Rosenblum MD, Daud AI Phase II Trial of IL-12 Plasmid Transfection and PD-1 Blockade in Immunologically Quiescent Melanoma.  View on PubMed
  18. Cham J, Zhang L, Kwek S, Paciorek A, He T, Fong G, Oh DY, Fong L Combination immunotherapy induces distinct T-cell repertoire responses when administered to patients with different malignancies.  View on PubMed
  19. Pal SK, McDermott DF, Atkins MB, Escudier B, Rini BI, Motzer RJ, Fong L, Joseph RW, Oudard S, Ravaud A, Bracarda S, Suárez C, Lam ET, Choueiri TK, Ding B, Quach C, Hashimoto K, Schiff C, Piault-Louis E, Powles T Patient-reported outcomes in a phase 2 study comparing atezolizumab alone or with bevacizumab vs sunitinib in previously untreated metastatic renal cell carcinoma.  View on PubMed
  20. de Almeida DVP, Fong L, Rettig MB, Autio KA Immune Checkpoint Blockade for Prostate Cancer: Niche Role or Next Breakthrough?  View on PubMed

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