Lawrence Fong

Lawrence Fong, M.D. is the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor in Cancer Biology and leads the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the UCSF. He also co-directs the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy at UCSF and co-leads the Cancer Immunity 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.