Student Spotlight

Each month we highlight one of our MSTP students. This month's highlight is: 

Arun Chumber 

Arun Chumber

Area of Study: Immunology/Cancer Biology
Hometown: Stockton, California

Academics

Research interests

  • Mechanisms of metastasis
  • Tumor Microenvironment – CAFs / TAMs
  • Response to Immunotherapy / Treatment resistance

Awards, honors, publications:

  • Kerr, M. D., McBride, D. A., Chumber, A. K., & Shah, N. J. (2021). Combining therapeutic vaccines with chemo- and immunotherapies in the treatment of cancer. Expert opinion on drug discovery, 16(1), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/17460441.2020.1811673
  • Kerr, M. D., McBride, D. A., Johnson, W. T., Chumber, A. K., Najibi, A. J., Seo, B. R., Stafford, A. G., Scadden, D. T., Mooney, D. J., & Shah, N. J. (2022). Immune-responsive biodegradable scaffolds for enhancing neutrophil regeneration. Bioengineering & translational medicine, 8(1), e10309. https://doi.org/10.1002/btm2.10309
  • Kerr, M. D., Johnson, W. T., McBride, D. A., Chumber, A. K., & Shah, N. J. (2023). Biodegradable scaffolds for enhancing vaccine delivery. Bioengineering & translational medicine, 8(6), e10591. https://doi.org/10.1002/btm2.10591
  • Tanaka, M., Lum, L., Hu, K., Chaudary, P., Hughes , S., Ledezma-Soto, C., Samad , B., Superville , D., Ng , K., Chumber , A., Benson , C., Adams , Z., Kersten , K., Aguilar , O., Fong , L., Combes , A., Krummel , M., & Reeves , M. (2025). Tumor cell heterogeneity drives spatial organization of the intratumoral immune response. Journal of Experimental Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20242282.
  • Aggarwal, R. R., Vuky, J., VanderWeele, D., Rettig, M., Heath, E. I., Quigley, D., Huang, J., Chumber, A., Cheung, A., Foye, A., Leung, S., Abbey, J., Dorr, A., Nasoff, M., Hunter, J., Wang, S., Flavell, R. R., Fong, L., Liu, B., & Small, E. J. (2025). Phase I, first-in-human study of FOR46 (FG-3246), an immune-modulating antibody-drug conjugate targeting CD46, in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1200/jco-24-01989

Long term goals/ aspirations

  • I would like to get good enough at violin to play some Paganini / Vivaldi. I also think it would be awesome to compose a piece of music. And I would like to see the 7 Wonders of the World and then some (i.e. be well traveled)

Post MSTP Training dream job

  • Right now I am leaning towards Pediatric Oncology or Radiation Oncology. I think it would be interesting to study the abscopal effect / making it more reproducible.

Fun Facts

What you enjoy outside of school

Baking, exercising (mainly the gym, but I can get down for the occasional hike), playing chess, watching anime, practicing violin, spending time with friends.

A talent you have always wanted

Being ambidextrous would be a very functional talent. Dual wielding pipettes goes crazy.

Favorite book

The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson

Favorite quote

“Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.” - Socrates

Can’t live without

My daily apple & oatmeal.
Side note: my real life superpower is probably being able to identify types of apples.

If you weren’t in MSTP, what would you be doing now?

Realistically, grad school or some job in biotech, but in a life where I didn’t pursue STEM I’d probably be a teacher or video game developer.

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