Hassane Zarour

Professor of Medicine, Immunology and Dermatology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pr. Zarour is a Cancer Immunologist with a long-lasting interest in cancer immunotherapies, cancer vaccines and human T cell immunology. His research focuses on immunotherapies of melanoma, T cell responses to melanoma antigens and on the mechanisms of melanoma-induced T cell dysfunction. He has made seminal contributions in the field of human cancer immunology, identifying multiple novel tumor antigen-specific CD4 epitopes, and determining the role of the novel inhibitory receptor pathways Tim-3 and TIGIT in impeding T cell responses to melanoma. Most recently, he has initiated translational studies evaluating the role of the gut microbiome in regulating clinical responses to PD-1 blockade in melanoma, including a first-in-human clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) obtained from long-term PD-1 responder patients and pembrolizumab in PD-1 refractory melanoma patients. As a co-leader of the of the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program (CIIP), he will contribute to its mission, and together with basic and clinical investigators, foster the translation of novel laboratory findings into novel immunotherapy of cancers.