Lawrence Fong, MD Genitourinary Cancer Specialist and Professor of Medicine Biography The Fong Lab research focuses on how the immune system interacts with cancer as well as exploring tumor immunotherapies in both mouse models and in patients. While their studies frequently transcend different tumor types, they are particularly focused on immunotherapy of GI and GU malignancies. They described the immunogenicity of prostate acid phosphatase (PAP), which is the target antigen for sipuleucel-T, now an FDA-approved immunotherapy for prostate cancer. Dr. Fong early work in immune checkpoint inhibitors involved participating in the first-in-man clinical trials with ipilimumab, an anti-CTLA4 antibody that is now FDA approved for melanoma. His lab continues to investigate how immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and cancer vaccines can enhance anti-tumor immunity in patients systemically as well as in the tumor microenvironment. By performing neoadjuvant immunotherapy trials, they are determining how specific therapies can recruit immune effectors in vivo in cancer patients. Moreover, they have studied how clinical responders may differ from clinical non-responders. They are applying unbiased approaches to studying antigen-specific responses that are modulated in these patients and are currently developing biomarkers that may be predictive of clinical efficacy. They also utilize autoimmune prone mouse models to define tumor-associated antigens, which may represent novel vaccine candidates. Education & Training 1988: Columbia University, New York, NY, BA, Pre-Med., Economics 1992: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, MD 1994: University of Washington, Seattle, WA, Internal Medicine Residency 1997: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, Oncology Fellowship Awards & Honors 2003: V Foundation Scholar 2002: American Association for Cancer Research Scholar-in-Training Award 1997: American Association for Cancer Research AFLAC Award; American Cancer Society Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award; American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award 1993: Alpha Omega Alpha 1990: Stanford Alumni Medical Scholar