Research Summary

The Spitzer Lab is working to develop our understanding of how the immune system coordinates its responses across the organism with an emphasis on tumor immunology. We combine methods in experimental immunology and cancer biology with computation to understand the modes in which the immune system can respond to tumors and to rationally initiate curative immune responses against cancer.

Research Funding

  • January 1, 2025 - December 31, 2029 - Early identification of immunotherapy resistance through integrated multiparameter imaging , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA290027
  • June 15, 2022 - March 31, 2027 - Immune determinants of progression from Oral Epithelial Dysplasia to Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma by precision multiplexed imaging , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01DE032033
  • September 21, 2016 - August 31, 2021 - Quantitatively modeling immune responses to cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: DP5OD023056
  • July 15, 2017 - May 31, 2019 - Single-cell High-dimensional Characterization of the Bone Marrow Microenvironment in Health and Disease , Co-Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R21AG057224
  • September 30, 2014 - September 29, 2018 - Revealing the tumor-immune network by mass cytometry , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: F31CA189331

Education

Georgetown University, B.S., 05/2011, Biology
Stanford University, Ph.D., 03/2016, Immunology

Honors & Awards

  • 2008-2011
    National Merit Scholarship Recipient
  • 2009
    Student-Athlete Academic Honors, Georgetown University
  • 2009-2011
    Baker Scholar, Georgetown University
  • 2010
    Reardon Fellow, Georgetown University
  • 2010
    Phi Beta Kappa
  • 2010-2011
    Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholar, Georgetown University
  • 2010-2011
    Taylor-Weber Memorial Scholar, Georgetown University
  • 2011
    Sigma Xi Medal for Most Outstanding Undergraduate Research, Georgetown University
  • 2011
    Summa Cum Laude, Georgetown University
  • 2011-2014
    George D. Smith Stanford Graduate Fellow, Stanford University
  • 2014-2016
    NIH/NCI NRSA F31 Fellow
  • 2016-2021
    Sandler Faculty Fellow, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2016-2021
    Sean N. Parker Faculty Fellow, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2016-2021
    Early Independence Award, Office of the Director, NIH

Selected Publications

  1. Revach OY, Cicerchia AM, Shorer O, Palin CA, Petrova B, Anderson S, Liu B, Park J, Chen L, Mehta A, Wright SJ, McNamee N, Tal-Mason A, Cattaneo G, Tiwari P, Xie H, Sweere JM, Cheng LC, Sigal N, Enrico E, Miljkovic M, Evans SA, Nguyen N, Whidden ME, Srinivasan R, Spitzer MH, Sun Y, Sharova T, Lawless AR, Michaud WA, Rasmussen MQ, Fang J, Brook JR, Chen F, Wang X, Ferrone CR, Lawrence DP, Sullivan RJ, Liu D, Sachdeva UM, Sen DR, Flaherty KT, Manguso RT, Bod L, Kellis M, Boland GM, Yizhak K, Yang J, Kanarek N, Sade-Feldman M, Hacohen N, Jenkins RW. Overcoming resistance to immunotherapy by targeting CD38 in human tumor explants. View on PubMed
  2. Peluso MJ, Sandel DA, Deitchman AN, Kim SJ, Dalhuisen T, Tummala HP, Tibúrcio R, Zemelko L, Borgo GM, Singh SS, Schwartz K, Deswal M, Williams MC, Hoh R, Shimoda M, Narpala S, Serebryannyy L, Khalili M, Vendrame E, SenGupta D, Whitmore LS, Tisoncik-Go J, Gale M, Koup RA, Mullins JI, Felber BK, Pavlakis GN, Reeves JD, Petropoulos CJ, Glidden DV, Spitzer MH, Gama L, Caskey M, Nussenzweig MC, Chew KW, Henrich TJ, Yukl SA, Cohn LB, Deeks SG, Rutishauser RL. Combination immunotherapy induces post-intervention control of HIV. Res Sq. 2025 Mar 19. View on PubMed
  3. Young JS, Cho NW, Lucas CG, Najem H, Mirchia K, Chen WC, Seo K, Zakimi N, Daggubati V, Casey-Clyde T, Nguyen MP, Chen A, Phillips JJ, Ozawa T, Aghi MK, Taylor JW, DeRisi JL, Bhaduri A, Berger MS, Heimberger AB, Butowski N, Spitzer MH, Raleigh DR. IL-6 underlies microenvironment immunosuppression and resistance to therapy in glioblastoma. bioRxiv. 2025 Mar 14. View on PubMed
  4. Moore J, Gkantalis J, Guix I, Chou W, Yuen K, Lazar AA, Spitzer M, Combes A, Barcellos-Hoff MH. Identification of a conserved subset of cold tumors responsive to immune checkpoint blockade. J Immunother Cancer. 2025 Mar 06; 13(3). View on PubMed
  5. Mestrallet G, Brown M, Vaninov N, Cho NW, Velazquez L, Ananthanarayanan A, Spitzer M, Vabret N, Bozkus CC, Samstein RM, Bhardwaj N. Coordinated macrophage and T cell interactions mediate response to checkpoint blockade in colorectal cancer. bioRxiv. 2025 Feb 17. View on PubMed
  6. Cho NW, Guldberg SM, Nabet BY, Yu JZ, Kim EJ, Hiam-Galvez KJ, Yee JL, DeBarge R, Tenvooren I, Ashitey NA, Lynce F, Dillon DA, Rosenbluth JM, Spitzer MH. T Cells Instruct Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy Resistance in Tumors Responsive to IL1 and TNFα Inflammation. Cancer Immunol Res. 2025 Feb 03; 13(2):229-244. View on PubMed
  7. Babdor J, Patel RK, Davidson B, Noecker C, Rahim M, Bisanz JE, Tenvooren I, Marquez D, Calvo M, Johri V, McCarthy E, Shaheed A, Ekstrand C, Weakley AM, Yu FB, Fiehn O, Turnbaugh PJ, Combes AJ, Fragiadakis GK, Spitzer MH. Coordinated variation in the immune systems and microbiomes of healthy humans is linked to tonic interferon states. bioRxiv. 2024 Dec 03. View on PubMed
  8. Garcia Castillo J, DeBarge R, Mende A, Tenvooren I, Marquez DM, Straub A, Busch DH, Spitzer MH, DuPage M. A mass cytometry method pairing T cell receptor and differentiation state analysis. Nat Immunol. 2024 Sep; 25(9):1754-1763. View on PubMed
  9. Roschelle M, Rabbani R, Gweon S, Kumar R, Vercruysse A, Cho NW, Spitzer MH, Niknejad AM, Stojanovic VM, Anwar M. A Wireless, Multicolor Fluorescence Image Sensor Implant for Real-Time Monitoring in Cancer Therapy. IEEE J Solid-State Circuits. 2024 Nov; 59(11):3580-3598. View on PubMed
  10. Roschelle M, Rabbani R, Gweon S, Kumar R, Vercruysse A, Cho NW, Spitzer MH, Niknejad AM, Stojanovic VM, Anwar M. A Wireless, Multicolor Fluorescence Image Sensor Implant for Real-Time Monitoring in Cancer Therapy. ArXiv. 2024 Jun 27. View on PubMed
  11. Allen BM, Hiam KJ, Burnett CE, Venida A, DeBarge R, Tenvooren I, Marquez DM, Cho NW, Carmi Y, Spitzer MH. Author Correction: Systemic dysfunction and plasticity of the immune macroenvironment in cancer models. Nat Med. 2024 May; 30(5):1502. View on PubMed
  12. Hatae R, Kyewalabye K, Yamamichi A, Chen T, Phyu S, Chuntova P, Nejo T, Levine LS, Spitzer MH, Okada H. Enhancing CAR-T cell metabolism to overcome hypoxic conditions in the brain tumor microenvironment. JCI Insight. 2024 Apr 08; 9(7). View on PubMed
  13. Revach OY, Cicerchia AM, Shorer O, Petrova B, Anderson S, Park J, Chen L, Mehta A, Wright SJ, McNamee N, Tal-Mason A, Cattaneo G, Tiwari P, Xie H, Sweere JM, Cheng LC, Sigal N, Enrico E, Miljkovic M, Evans SA, Nguyen N, Whidden ME, Srinivasan R, Spitzer MH, Sun Y, Sharova T, Lawless AR, Michaud WA, Rasmussen MQ, Fang J, Palin CA, Chen F, Wang X, Ferrone CR, Lawrence DP, Sullivan RJ, Liu D, Sachdeva UM, Sen DR, Flaherty KT, Manguso RT, Bod L, Kellis M, Boland GM, Yizhak K, Yang J, Kanarek N, Sade-Feldman M, Hacohen N, Jenkins RW. Disrupting CD38-driven T cell dysfunction restores sensitivity to cancer immunotherapy. bioRxiv. 2024 Mar 26. View on PubMed
  14. Wai KC, Okholm TLH, Ha PK, Marquez DM, Tenvooren I, Jones KB, Spitzer MH. The tumor microenvironment of benign and malignant salivary gland tumors. Head Neck. 2024 07; 46(7):1625-1636. View on PubMed
  15. Kovacsovics-Bankowski M, Sweere JM, Healy CP, Sigal N, Cheng LC, Chronister WD, Evans SA, Marsiglio J, Gibson B, Swami U, Erickson-Wayman A, McPherson JP, Derose YS, Eliason AL, Medina CO, Srinivasan R, Spitzer MH, Nguyen N, Hyngstrom J, Hu-Lieskovan S. Lower frequencies of circulating suppressive regulatory T cells and higher frequencies of CD4+ naïve T cells at baseline are associated with severe immune-related adverse events in immune checkpoint inhibitor-treated melanoma. J Immunother Cancer. 2024 01 17; 12(1). View on PubMed
  16. Castillo JG, DeBarge R, Mende A, Tenvooren I, Marquez DM, Straub A, Busch DH, Spitzer MH, DuPage M. A mass cytometry approach to track the evolution of T cell responses during infection and immunotherapy by paired T cell receptor repertoire and T cell differentiation state analysis. bioRxiv. 2024 Jan 12. View on PubMed
  17. Liu SJ, Casey-Clyde T, Cho NW, Swinderman J, Pekmezci M, Dougherty MC, Foster K, Chen WC, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Swaney DL, Vasudevan HN, Choudhury A, Pak J, Breshears JD, Lang UE, Eaton CD, Hiam-Galvez KJ, Stevenson E, Chen KH, Lien BV, Wu D, Braunstein SE, Sneed PK, Magill ST, Lim D, McDermott MW, Berger MS, Perry A, Krogan NJ, Hansen MR, Spitzer MH, Gilbert L, Theodosopoulos PV, Raleigh DR. Epigenetic reprogramming shapes the cellular landscape of schwannoma. Nat Commun. 2024 01 12; 15(1):476. View on PubMed
  18. Wheeler BD, Gagnon JD, Zhu WS, Muñoz-Sandoval P, Wong SK, Simeonov DS, Li Z, DeBarge R, Spitzer MH, Marson A, Ansel KM. The lncRNA Malat1 inhibits miR-15/16 to enhance cytotoxic T cell activation and memory cell formation. Elife. 2023 12 21; 12. View on PubMed
  19. Karra L, Finger AM, Shechtman L, Krush M, Huang RM, Prinz M, Tennvooren I, Bahl K, Hysienaj L, Gonzalez PG, Combes AJ, Gonzalez H, Argüello RJ, Spitzer MH, Roose JP. Single cell proteomics characterization of bone marrow hematopoiesis with distinct Ras pathway lesions. bioRxiv. 2023 Dec 20. View on PubMed
  20. Hatae R, Kyewalabye K, Yamamichi A, Chen T, Phyu S, Chuntova P, Nejo T, Levine LS, Spitzer MH, Okada H. Enhancing CAR-T Cell Metabolism to Overcome Hypoxic Conditions in the Brain Tumor Microenvironment. bioRxiv. 2023 Nov 15. View on PubMed

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