News from the Breast Tumor Immunology Laboratory

October 2021 - We are delighted to Welcome Dr. Daniel Michaud to the lab! He brings his extensive expertise on B-cells to the BTIL. Welcome Dan!

August 10, 2021 - Esther Ogayo is captured as the "picture of the week", she's seen organizing a tray of breast tissue to be used for the important work our team is doing. Great picture!

July 2021 - We are so proud of our BTIL team, they have submitted SEVEN abstracts to the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium based on the cutting-edge science from the BTIL by these incredibly hard working scientists and physicians!

July 2021 - Welcome Austin Shultz to the BTIL! Austin joins us as a new technician.

May 2021 - Congratulations to the BTIL team on their recent review in Frontiers Immunology on The Immunology of Hormone Receptor Positive Breast Cancer.
April 2021 - Congratulations to the BTIL team on their recent review in Frontiers Immunology on Macrophage biology and mechanisms of immune suppression in breast cancer.

February 20-22, 2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Sapana Kadel for receiving a travel award to the SITC Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School!

December 14, 2020 - Congratulations to Dr. Mehta and the BTIL team on their new Nature Cancer paper that is available on line now!
Targeting immunosuppressive macrophages overcomes PARP inhibitor resistance in BRCA1-associated triple-negative breast cancer.
Targeting immunosuppressive macrophages overcomes PARP inhibitor resistance in BRCA1-associated triple-negative breast cancer.
December 2020
Happy Holidays from BTIL!
COVID19 didn't stop our holiday fun! We baked cupcakes together through zoom and were delighted to have so many alumni join us. Who made the best cupcakes?? A timely BTIL gift was included in the festivities. (Masks up!)

November 20, 2020 - Congratulations to Dr. Pastorello and colleagues on their manuscript "Clinico-pathologic predictors of patterns of residual disease following neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer" published in Modern Pathology.
November 6, 2020 - Congratulations to Dr. Pastorello on obtaining a faculty position! Dr. Pastorellow will be an attending physician (pathology service) at Hospital Sítio Libanês in São Paulo. We will miss you! Best of luck.
October 10, 2020 - Many congratulations to Dr. Mittendorf and her colleagues on their presentation at ESMO on Neoadjuvant atezolizumab in combination with sequential nab-paclitaxel and anthracycline-based chemotherapy versus placebo and chemotherapy in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (IMpassion031): a randomized, double-blind, phase 3 trial.
Read the manuscript in The Lancet here.
Read the manuscript in The Lancet here.

October 4, 2020 - Congratulations to Dr. Guerriero who has started her independent laboratory in the Division of Breast Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Guerriero will continue to serve as the Director of BTIL. We wish her well as she launches her independent laboratory!
Guerriero Lab website
Guerriero Lab website
July 2020 - Welcome to Ritah Ogayo, Madeline Townsend and Yvonne Cui - 3 talented technicians who have joined our team!

Many congratulations to Emily Cheney!! She has been accepted to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine! We are so proud of you!

May, 2020
Congratulations to Kene Adigwe on his acceptance to the University of Massachusetts Medical School! We are so proud of you!
Congratulations to Kene Adigwe on his acceptance to the University of Massachusetts Medical School! We are so proud of you!
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Take a look at the the work we are doing with the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School to better understand the spatial organization of immune cells in breast tumors.
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Read a new interview by Dr. Mittendorf: Breast Cancer Gets a Boost from Immunotherapy.
![]() September 16, 2019: Many congratulations to Dr. Mittendorf. She will lead a new Stand Up to Cancer research team, consisting of researchers and clinicians from cancer centers around the country, that will investigate therapies to help prevent recurrence of triple-negative breast cancer.
Read the press release here. |
August 2019 - We celebrated a very productive year, welcomed 4 new members to the Breast Tumor Immunology Laboratory and said good bye to Dr. Christina Hartl, who has successfully defended her PhD and will return home to Germany to pursue a career in cancer immunotherapy. We had a great celebration filled with friendly competition - we like to win!! This should make for a very productive year ahead!

Congratulations to Dr. Guerriero for being selected for the SITC Inagural Women in Cancer Immunotherapy Leadership Institute
SITC WIN Leaders
SITC WIN Leaders
July 2019: We are delighted to welcome FOUR new members to the laboratory!
Dr. Tuulia Vallius, MD, PhD who has joined us as a postdoctoroal fellow and will be co-mentored by Dr. Peter Sorger in the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vallius will use single cell mutliplex imaging technology to elucidate the tumor microenvironment in breast cancer. Welcome Dr. Vallius!
Ms. Janae Davis has joined us as a research technician. She will work on the development on tissue based multiplex imaging technology called cyclic immunofluorescence.
Mr. Jonathan Goldberg has joined us from MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has just completed his second year of medical school and will spend the next two years using single cell transcriptomics to reveal novel insights into the breast tumor microenvironment.
Ms. Madisson Oliwa has joined us as a research technician and she will utilize preclinical models of breast cancer to identify novel therapeutic targets for breast cancer therapy.
Dr. Tuulia Vallius, MD, PhD who has joined us as a postdoctoroal fellow and will be co-mentored by Dr. Peter Sorger in the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vallius will use single cell mutliplex imaging technology to elucidate the tumor microenvironment in breast cancer. Welcome Dr. Vallius!
Ms. Janae Davis has joined us as a research technician. She will work on the development on tissue based multiplex imaging technology called cyclic immunofluorescence.
Mr. Jonathan Goldberg has joined us from MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has just completed his second year of medical school and will spend the next two years using single cell transcriptomics to reveal novel insights into the breast tumor microenvironment.
Ms. Madisson Oliwa has joined us as a research technician and she will utilize preclinical models of breast cancer to identify novel therapeutic targets for breast cancer therapy.

June 19, 2019 - Congratulations to our colleagues in the McAllister Lab and Dr. Mittendorf for their recent work on how age influences response to immune checkpoint blockade, published in Cancer Discovery.
![]() June 2019 - Great team effort, led by Drs. Geoff Shaprio, Gerburg Wulf and Jennifer Guerriero, on our new paper titled: PARP Inhibitor Efficacy Depends on CD8+ T-cell Recruitment via Intratumoral STING Pathway Activation in BRCA-Deficient Models of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Cancer Discovery.
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May 6, 2019 - Congratulations to Drs. Ada Waks and Sara Tolaney - we are honored to be part of this incredible story studying the immune microenvironment in hormone receptor–positive breast cancer before and after preoperative chemotherapy that was published in Clinical Cancer Research!
February 1, 2019 - Congratulation Dr. Guerriero on your review on Macrophages: The Road Less Traveled, Changing Anticancer Therapy being selected as "Best of Trends".
Read the press release here.
Read the press release here.
January 15, 2019 - Congratulations Dr. Mittendorf on your recent publication entitled: Fucosylation enhances the efficacy of adoptively transferred antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in Clinical Cancer Research!
December 17, 2018 - We are delighted to welcome Kenechukwu Adigwe to the B-TIL as a research technician who will oversee processing of clinical samples! Welcome Kene!

September 29, 2018 - Congratulations Nathan Johnson on your publication in RNA on your work testing whether machine learning tools that use data about alternative splicing perform better than tools that rely on data about gene expression. The identification that alternative splicing data is better at classifying samples than genetic sequencing data is an incredibly important observation! Congratulations! Find press from the article here.

August 9, 2018 - Congratulations Emily Cheney on your beautiful publication on Dysregulation in Actin Cytoskeletal Organization Drives Increased Stiffness and Migratory Persistence in Polyploidal Giant Cancer Cells!
August 6, 2018 - Welcome Dr. Brett Gross! We are thrilled a T cell expert has joined our group!
June 5, 2018 - Welcome Emily Cheney! We are thrilled that Emily will join our laboratory as a research technician.
June 1, 2018 - Welcome to Dana-Farber/Labroatory of Systems Pharmacology Dr. Nathan Johnson. Nathan will be a key member of our laboratory and will support the computational needs of our projects. We are very excited to work with Dr. Johnson and his co-mentor, Dr. Peter Sorger.
June 5, 2018 - Welcome Emily Cheney! We are thrilled that Emily will join our laboratory as a research technician.
June 1, 2018 - Welcome to Dana-Farber/Labroatory of Systems Pharmacology Dr. Nathan Johnson. Nathan will be a key member of our laboratory and will support the computational needs of our projects. We are very excited to work with Dr. Johnson and his co-mentor, Dr. Peter Sorger.

May 24, 2018 - Congratulations Dr. Guerriero on this important review on tumor macrophage heterogeneity and ontogeny. Look at that cover art!
January 2, 2018 - Welcome to Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Dr. Mittendorf!
March 2017 - Team macrophage publishes their work in Nature on activating macrophages to enhance anti-cancer therapy in breast cancer. Congratulations!
March 2017 - Team macrophage publishes their work in Nature on activating macrophages to enhance anti-cancer therapy in breast cancer. Congratulations!