As a postdoc at MIT (2017-2021) and during my PhD at the University of Chicago (2010-2017), I used live imaging to link fast and adaptive dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton with clinically significant behaviors of cell collectives. My work on tumor invasion and the anti-tumor immune responses aimed to scale the behaviors of individual cells to emergent, collective actions of tissues and cell populations.

2021 Research Summary: "Linking Immune Cell Behaviors with Anti-Tumor Immunity across Space and Time"

CV

Publications

• Fessenden T, Stopfer LS, Chatterjee F, Zuleta J, Mesfin J, Cordero Dumit T, Reijers I, Hoefsmit EP, Blank C, White FM, and Spranger S. Dendritic cell-mediated cross presentation of tumor-derived peptides is biased against plasma membrane proteins. Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer (2022).

• Jaeger AM, Stopfer LE, Ahn R, Sanders EA, Sandel DA, Freed-Pastor WA, Rideout, WM, Naranjo S, Fessenden T, Nguyen KB, Kohn RE, Westcott PMK, Schenkel JM, Shanahan LS, Shalek AK, Spranger S, White FM, Jacks T.  Deciphering the immunopeptidome in vivo reveals new tumour antigens. Nature (2022).

• Duong E, Fessenden T, Lutz E, Dinter T, Yim L, Blatt S, Bhutkar A, Wittrup KD, Spranger S. Type I interferon activates MHC class I-dressed CD11b+ conventional dendritic cells to promote protective anti-tumor CD8+ T cell immunity. Immunity (2022).

• Fessenden T, Duong E,  Spranger S. A team effort: natural killer cells on the first leg of the tumor immunity relay race. J Immunotherapy Cancer. (2018). 

• Horton BL, Fessenden T, Spranger S. Tissue Site and the Cancer Immunity Cycle. Trends Cancer. (2019).

• Fessenden TB, Beckham Y, Perez-Neut M, Ramirez-San Juan G, Chourasia AH, McCleod KF, Oakes PW, Gardel ML. (2018) Dia1-dependent Adhesions are Required by Epithelial Tissues to Initiate Invasion. J Cell Biol (2018).