Claire Friedman, MD

I am a physician-scientist who cares for people with advanced melanoma, as well as people with other types of tumors that respond to treatment with immunotherapies. I am a member of the Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering. My primary research interest is the tumor immune microenvironment (the area around tumors), especially in patients whose disease has returned after initial treatment. I am one of the lead investigators of a phase II clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab with or without nivolumab in patients with advanced melanoma who have progressive or relapsed disease after treatment with nivolumab or pembrolizumab. We are interested in whether these patients benefit from combination immunotherapy. We also hope to clarify mechanisms of resistance to checkpoint-blocking antibodies. This may have important implications for immunotherapy combinations in the future, both for the treatment of melanoma as well as other solid tumor types.

• 2010: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, BS, Biopsychology
• 2011: NYU School of Medicine, Manhattan, NY, MD
• 2014: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelpha, PA, Residency