# Timothy A. Chan

Source: https://onco.cc/people/timothy-chan/  
OnCo record `timothy-chan` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Timothy Chan showed that tumour mutational burden predicts who benefits from checkpoint inhibitors.

## Summary

Timothy A. Chan is Director of the Global Center for Immunotherapy and Chair of the Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology at Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute. He is a physician-scientist known for showing that tumour mutational burden predicts who benefits from checkpoint inhibitors, through genomic studies in 2014 and 2015 that linked mutational load and neoantigens to response to CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade. His selected papers report the genetic basis for clinical response to CTLA-4 blockade in melanoma and the mutational landscape determining sensitivity to PD-1 blockade in lung cancer. He also showed that HLA diversity shapes immunotherapy benefit and continues to work in immunogenomics.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Role: Director, Global Center for Immunotherapy; Chair, Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology
- Specialisms: Immunogenomics; Tumour mutational burden; HLA and immunotherapy response

## Sources

- Cleveland Clinic profile: https://www.lerner.ccf.org/immunotherapy/chan/
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Chan%20TA%5BAuthor%5D

## Connected records

- cancers: [Melanoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/melanoma/), [Non-small-cell lung cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/nsclc/)
- technologies: [Immune checkpoint inhibitors](https://onco.cc/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/)
- institutions: [Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute](https://onco.cc/institutions/cleveland-clinic/)
- terms: [Neoantigen](https://onco.cc/terms/neoantigen/), [Tumour mutational burden (TMB)](https://onco.cc/terms/tmb/)

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