Bernard A. FOX

After my Ph.D. in Immunology from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, I did my postdoctoral work with Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. I then moved to the University of Michigan, and later joined the Providence Cancer Center in Portland, Oregon, where I have been for over 25 years as the Harder Family Chair for Cancer Research and chief of the Laboratory of Molecular & Tumor Immunology.

Immunotherapy, and in particular the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, has given remarkable results in the treatment of cancers. In this field, my team members and I strive to pursue three main objectives: perform good basic research that opens the path to effective immunotherapies, translate these results into clinical trials for patients with multiple cancer  types (melanoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc.), and train the next generation of translational investigators in the process.

As wonderful as immunotherapy has been, currently available drugs don’t work for every patient unfortunately, and the majority of them still progress with their cancers. I believe the way to overcome this hurdle and the future for immunotherapy are combination therapies. This belief is also the motor behind The Pioneer Project, a study designed to understand, predict and overcome the resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer. Sailing across the highly collaborative environment of Marseille Immunopôle, The Pioneer Project is the only study I know of that has established such a strong public – private partnership between academia, a medical cancer center, 3 biotechnology companies that bring in their strengths and innovation, and a major pharmaceutical company with deeper resources and already approved agents for the treatment of lung cancers. Linking the study of biomarkers, exome sequencing and gene expression to an umbrella clinical trial that combines checkpoint inhibitors with other therapeutic agents is certainly one of the strengths of this project that I am pleased to be part of. I certainly believe studies like this will pave the way to more effective treatments for cancer patients.