Timothy Chan

Dr. Chan is founder of, has an equity interest in, and serves on the scientific advisory board of Gritstone Oncology. Dr. Chan is co-inventor of intellectual property related to neoantigens for prediction of immunotherapy response; MSK has licensed this technology to Gritstone. This research utilizes several highly unique tissue collection strategies – a) laparoscopic multi-site biopsies to identify stage-specific heterogeneity, b) serial pre- and post-chemotherapy assessment for treatment-specific modulation, and c) evaluation of neoantigen quality as a predictive biomarker on a large, immunotherapeutic PDAC trial. This research will develop the ability to identify neoantigens in circulating exosomes for blood-based biomarker assessment. The research methodology employs next generation sequencing, transcriptional profiling, computational biophysical modeling, clonotypic T cell profiling, neoantigen discovery, and functional assessments to evaluate the prognostic, predictive, and therapeutic potential of neoantigens. This initiative is directly relevant to the primary objective to develop novel biomarkers and T cell antigenic targets for the successful application of immunotherapy in PDAC and the aims of this research intersect with Gritstone's focus on developing tumor-specific cancer immunotherapies to fight multiple cancer types.