Professor Jennifer Wargo’s career commitment is to advance the understanding and treatment of disease through science. After completing her medical degree, she entered surgical residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts where she became interested in the biology and treatment of cancer. During her training, she completed two fellowships in Surgical Oncology with a focus on immunotherapy for cancer.  The Division of Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital recruited Dr. Wargo in July 2008 where she headed an active research laboratory focusing on melanoma tumorigenesis and immunotherapy.  In September 2013, Dr. Wargo joined the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to help lead the Melanoma Moon Shot program.  With a joint appointment in Surgical Oncology and Genomic Medicine, she continues her critical research to better understand responses to therapy and develop novel strategies to combat resistance.  This includes her groundbreaking recent work elucidating the role of the gut microbiome in shaping responses to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma and a clinical trial underway exploring optimal methods to manipulate the gut microbiome to enhance responses to cancer therapy.