Benjamin Fairfax
BM BCh, MRCP, PhD
Professor of Cancer Immunogenetics
- Wellcome Intermediate Clinical Fellow
- Hon. Consultant Medical Oncologist
Group Leader
Research Interests
Checkpoint Immunotherapy has revolutionised the treatment of multiple cancer subtypes, notably melanoma.
Clinical outcomes from these treatments are variable however. Toxicity, in the form of immune related adverse events, is a frequent cause of patient morbidity, whilst many patients' tumours show only limited sensitivity to immunotherapy.
This inter-patient heterogeneity in response is determined by features of the cancer - such as driver mutations and overall mutational burden, as well as tumour-extrinsic factors. These include past immune exposures of the patient, genetically determined features of the immune system and other factors including potentially the microbiome (most notably the bacterial strains within the gut).
My group is interested in the interplay between patients' immune systems and their response to checkpoint immunotherapy. We study this in samples generously donated by cancer patients who have received treatment in the OUH.
We hope the findings of our work will further our understanding of how the immune system can tackle cancer, improving oncological outcomes from cancer immunotherapy whilst reduce suffering due to side effects.
Recent publications
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Severe acute myositis and myocarditis on initiation of 6-weekly pembrolizumab post-COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.
Journal article
Watson RA. et al, (2024), J Immunother Cancer, 12
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Characterization of the genetic determinants of context-specific DNA methylation in primary monocytes.
Journal article
Gilchrist JJ. et al, (2024), Cell Genom
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A common NFKB1 variant detected through antibody analysis in UK Biobank predicts risk of infection and allergy.
Journal article
Chong AY. et al, (2024), Am J Hum Genet, 111, 295 - 308
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Single-cell immune multi-omics and repertoire analyses in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma reveal differential immunosuppressive mechanisms within different tumour microenvironments
Preprint
Sivakumar S. et al, (2023)
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A role for SETD2 loss in tumorigenesis through DNA methylation dysregulation.
Journal article
Javaid H. et al, (2023), BMC Cancer, 23
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scQCEA: a framework for annotation and quality control report of single-cell RNA-sequencing data.
Journal article
Nassiri I. et al, (2023), BMC Genomics, 24
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Author Correction: GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19.
Journal article
Pairo-Castineira E. et al, (2023), Nature, 619
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GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19.
Journal article
Pairo-Castineira E. et al, (2023), Nature, 617, 764 - 768
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IFNγ signaling in cytotoxic T cells restricts anti-tumor responses by inhibiting the maintenance and diversity of intra-tumoral stem-like T cells.
Journal article
Mazet JM. et al, (2023), Nat Commun, 14
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Characterisation of the genetic determinants of context specific DNA methylation in primary monocytes
Preprint
Gilchrist J. et al, (2023)