Wolf-Hervé Fridman, MD

Dr Fridman’s research focused on the analysis of the tumor microenvironment. Since 2005, his studies have changed the paradigm of host/cancer interactions by demonstrating that the ‘immune contexture”, taking in account the functionality, the location and the density of the immune infiltrate in colorectal tumors, is the major prognostic factor for human cancers. He is involved in the development of bioinformatic tools to quantify cells of the tumor microenvironment which are being successfully applied to predict prognosis and immunotherapeutic responses in Renal Cell Cancers, Colorectal Cancers or Sarcomas. One major achievement is the establishment of an immune classification of soft tissue sarcoma tumors that allowed to demonstrate that Tertiary Lymphoid Structures (TLS) and B cell signatures, better than T cells, predicted favorable clinical outcome and therapeutic response to anti-PD- 1 therapy in patients. These findings were recently extended to other cancers treated with immune check-point blockers showing that plasma cells generated inside TLS produce anti-tumor antibodies associated with patient’s response to immunotherapy. They open the way for novel immune-based tools for efficient prognosis and therapy of cancers.