Titles and Affiliations
Fellow, Medical Oncology
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation
Research Area
Understanding how combination therapy improves outcomes in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.
Impact
Estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer is the most common breast cancer subtype, affecting the majority of patients. While current therapies like hormone treatments and CDK4/6 inhibitors have extended survival, many patients eventually develop drug resistance. CDK4/6 inhibitors may make cancer cells easier for the immune system to spot, allowing immune cells to better recognize and attack the tumor. Early results from the ImmunoADAPT trial indicate that adding an immunotherapy drug called avelumab (Bavencio®) to endocrine therapy and CDK4/6 inhibitors may further improve treatment response in participants.
What’s Next
For his Conquer Cancer research supported by BCRF, Dr. Zavras will use advanced technologies to analyze patient tumor samples collected during the trial. These studies will help uncover how CDK4/6 inhibitors and immunotherapy reshape the immune microenvironment surrounding breast tumors, guiding future approaches to identify which patients are most likely to benefit from this combination therapy.
Biography
Phaedon Zavras, MD earned his medical degree from the University of Athens Medical School in 2017. He then joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York as a postdoctoral fellow, where he investigated significant viral complications following allogeneic stem cell transplantation. He subsequently completed his Internal Medicine residency at Jacobi Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. He is currently completing his third year of Oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, where he has dedicated his clinical and research efforts to Breast Oncology. His work focuses on early drug development, specifically, strategies to prime estrogen receptor (ER)- positive/HER2-negative breast tumors for immunotherapy and to identify predictive biomarkers of response. Upon graduation, Dr. Zavras will return to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as an Assistant Professor and Clinical Investigator on the Breast Medicine Service. In that role, he will continue to work on clinical and translational studies in the ER-resistant space, with the goal of improving outcomes for patients with breast cancer.
