Professor of Clinical Surgery
University of Pennsylvania
The overarching aim of Dr. Tchou's research is to empower our patients with chemotherapy-free strategies to improve outcomes. Dr. Tchou and her Penn Medicine collaborators comprising of clinicians, basic and translational scientists study immunotherapy approaches in clinical trials to harness and bolster pre-existing anti-tumor immunity to prevent breast cancer recurrence. Her laboratory utilizes pre-clinical models as a "reverse translation aproach" to unravel the molecular mechanisms that govern the anti-tumor immunity elicited by immunotherapy so that they can refine and improve current clinical trial immunotherapy strategies further. Dr. Tchou and her team also recognize the importance of healthy lifestyles adoption and maintenance in our breast cancer survivors as a strategy to improve long-term outcomes. Her team has successfully developed a novel use of telehealth to deliver a behavioral weight loss program for our breast cancer survivors. Her team is now focusing on identifying barriers and facilitators of adopting and maintaining healthy lifestyles for our patients, in particular, minoritzied patients, in our community.