Scott Abrams, PhD

Academic Track Chair, Tumor Immunology PhD Program
Co-Leader, Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program
Chair, Department of Immunology
Jacobs Family Endowed Chair of Immunology
 View the Abrams Lab

Research Interests:

  • Defining molecular mechanisms by which lymphocytes kill tumor cells in vivo
  • Identifying tumor escape mechanisms, with emphasis on how the neoplastic process promotes immune suppression
  • Developing novel combination therapies to augment anti-cancer responses

Biography

Dr. Scott Abrams is Professor of Oncology, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Jacobs Family Endowed Chair of Immunology. He is also Co-Leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. He holds a joint appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He previously served as Director of Graduate Studies for the Immunology Graduate Program at Roswell Park and is currently the Program Director/Principal Investigator of the program’s longstanding T32 predoctoral training grant. Since joining Roswell Park in 2008, Dr. Abrams serves or has served as PhD Advisor for numerous predoctoral fellows, including five students supported by NCI F-series (F30, F31 & F99) fellowships. Also, he serves or has served on numerous MS and PhD committees at Roswell Park, SUNY-UB, and University of Rochester, as well as mentoring committees for junior faculty and clinical/research fellows. For recognition of his contributions to graduation education, he received three separate awards in mentoring. And, for his scientific and collaborative accomplishments, he received the Roswell Pride in Member Ingenuity (RPMI) Award.

Dr. Abrams earned his PhD degree in Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University in Indianapolis and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by a Senior Staff fellowship and then appointment to Investigator at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD, all before joining Roswell Park. At the NCI, Dr. Abrams was honored with five consecutive Performance Awards and was the recipient of six NIH Federal Technology Transfer Awards for the discovery of human T lymphocyte peptide epitopes reflecting ras codon 12 mutations. The identification of such mutated ras peptide sequences also culminated in patent approval in both Europe and the U.S.

Dr. Abrams' research interests reside in tumor immunology, particularly mechanisms of tumor escape and immune suppression, which are actively supported by the National Cancer Institute and Department of Defense. Dr. Abrams serves or has served on multiple grant review panels, including membership on the NIH Tumor Microenvironment (TME) study section (now called THI), as well as Editorial Boards of several journals in the fields of cancer immunology and immunotherapy. Throughout his career, Dr. Abrams has been invited to given seminars and other major presentations nationally and internationally and has authored/co-authored more than 150 journal articles, reviews, and book chapters in the areas of tumor biology, immunology, and immunotherapy.

Abrams Lab

Positions

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Professor of Oncology
  • Academic Track Chair, Tumor Immunology PhD Program
  • Co-Leader, Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program
  • Chair – Department of Immunology
  • Jacobs Family Endowed Chair of Immunology

State University of New York at Buffalo

  • Research Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Background

Education and Training

  • PhD - Microbiology and Immunology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN

Professional Memberships

  • American Association for Cancer Research
  • American Association of Immunologists
  • Sigma Xi Society
  • Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer

Honors & Awards

  • 2016, 2023- Graduate Student Association Award for Faculty Excellence in Mentoring and Teaching, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • 2018 - Roswell Pride in Member Ingenuity (RPMI) Award
  • 2017 - Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • 2003–2007 - NCI/NIH Performance Award
  • NIH Federal Technology Transfer Award (x6)

Research Overview

The Abrams Laboratory focuses on identifying molecular or pharmacologic approaches to restoring myeloid defects in preclinical models of cancer and testing these approaches in concert with immune-based therapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) or experimental vaccines to elicit durable antitumor activities. These goals are grounded in the rationale that understanding mechanisms of tumor escape, such as tumor-induced myeloid dysfunction, are important not only to improving our knowledge of the host-tumor interplay, but also the development of more effective anti-cancer therapies.

Immune suppression is a dominant form of tumor escape and culminates from a cancer-induced process that antagonizes productive antitumor immune responses, much like a tug-of-war. Major cellular components that drive immune suppression include the myeloid arm of the innate immune system, namely myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and macrophages. Together, both populations are an abundant component of the non-cancerous content of solid malignancies, known as the tumor microenvironment (TME). Within the TME, such myeloid populations are highjacked by the growing malignancy and exhibit multiple pro-tumorigenic activities. Therefore, restoring ‘myeloid fitness’ is likely to augment immune surveillance and therapeutic efficacy across these diverse traditional or experimental regimens. In the fields of both MDSC and macrophage biology, our laboratory has focused on how these populations develop or how they acquire their pro-tumorigenic activities. Investigations over the past several years have yielded new insights into these incompletely understood mechanisms. Projects in the laboratory are building upon these advances and their translational implications to therapeutic applications. One key project exploits the use of this new knowledge of MDSC ‘biogenesis’ to improving immunotherapeutic platforms in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a highly aggressive subtype of breast cancer with currently limited treatment options. More details about the research projects of the Abrams Lab are provided on the lab website.

 View the Abrams Lab

Publications

  Full Publications list on PubMed