The Blum Lab

at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Widening the therapeutic window for cancer immunotherapy

Cancer immunotherapy can deliver life-saving benefits to patients with many types of cancer. However, most tumors do not respond to current treatments, especially when the cancer has spread to certain parts of the body. Immunotherapies can also cause serious side effects called immune-related adverse events (irAEs), which happen when the immune system attacks healthy organs.

In medicine, the therapeutic window is the range in which a treatment helps patients more than it harms them. Our lab seeks to learn from patients, identify actionable biological mechanisms, and develop strategies that widen this window by making cancer immunotherapy both safer and more effective.

Our research themes and lead projects

Overcoming immunotherapy resistance: Malignant effusions

In roughly one in five cancer patients, cancer spreads to the chest and abdominal cavities and leads to fluid accumulations known as malignant effusions. Patients with effusions respond poorly to current treatments and require recurrent procedures to remove this fluid. We use these fluids as a window into the human immune response to cancer and to test new therapies.

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Disentangling toxicity and efficacy:
Immune-related adverse events

Immunotherapy can cause the immune system to attack healthy organs. These side effects are known as irAEs, and they can lead to decreased quality of life, interruptions in treatment, hospitalization, and even death. We study these irAEs and their relationship to anti-tumor immune responses to find treatments that limit harm while maximizing efficacy.