Eleanor Fallon, MD, joined Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to combine her two passions: treating melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers and research into how immunotherapy can be used to make other therapies more effective.
With a dual appointment at Roswell Park in the departments of both surgical oncology and immunology, Dr. Fallon’s work incorporates the latest best practices in treating cancers today while accessing clinical trials that could provide better outcomes for patients in the future.
“I’m interested in investigating the tumor immune microenvironment in patients with melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers and understanding how immune checkpoint blockade and intralesional therapies might modulate that environment,” she says. “We’ve done some work nationally that shows the gut microbiome being healthier can overcome patterns of resistance to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma,” which could lead to the development of prognostic indicators in the future.
Already, “immunotherapy has changed the game for melanoma,” Dr. Fallon adds. “That has changed how we care for patients from a surgical standpoint. Folks are living longer with more advanced stage of disease and are re-presenting in different ways. Regional therapies for more advanced disease and intralesional therapies for more advanced disease are really intriguing. Figuring out precision in that setting to (determine) how to most optimally select those patients who should receive those various combinations of therapy and how we may optimize them with other lifestyle and diet modifications to really boost their immune system for that engagement of those medications is really exciting.”
The ability to both see patients and advance her research work made Roswell Park an attractive place to work. “Everyone I’ve met so far have been dedicated to patient care, excellence and research to drive better outcomes for those patients,” Dr. Fallon says. “That’s unique within the institution and maybe nationally and it really stands out among other comprehensive cancer centers for that dedication.”
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