Medical Oncology

Michael Aaron Morse, MD

Professor of Medicine
Professor in the Department of Surgery
Member of the Duke Cancer Institute
Campus mail Duke Box 3233, Durham, NC 27710
Phone (919) 681-3480
Email address morse004@mc.duke.edu

We are studying the use of immune therapies to treat various cancers, including gastrointestinal, breast, and lung cancers and melanoma. These therapies include vaccines based on dendritic cells developed in our laboratory as well as vaccines based on peptides, viral vectors, and DNA plasmids. Our group is also a national leader in the development and use of laboratory assays for demonstrating immunologic responses to cancer vaccines. Finally, we are developing immunotherapies based on adoptive transfer of tumor and viral antigen-specific T cells.

Our current clinical trials include phase I and II studies of immunotherapy for: patients with metastatic malignancies expressing CEA, pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer, and leukemias following HSCT. My clinical area of expertise is in gastrointestinal oncology, in particular, the treatment of hepatic malignancies, and malignant melanoma.

Key words: dendritic cells, immunotherapy, vaccines, T cells, gastrointestinal oncology, melanoma, hepatoma

Education and Training

  • Fellow in Hematology-Oncology, Medicine, Duke University, 1993 - 1996
  • Medical Resident, Medicine, University of Washington, 1990 - 1993
  • M.D., Yale University, 1990

Grants

Publications

Thorpe, Matthew P., Ari Kane, Jason Zhu, Michael A. Morse, Terence Wong, and Salvador Borges-Neto. “Long-Term Outcomes of 125 Patients With Metastatic Pheochromocytoma or Paraganglioma Treated With 131-I MIBG.” In J Clin Endocrinol Metab, Vol. 105, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgz074.

PMID
31614368
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Zhou, Xinna, Guoliang Qiao, Jun Ren, Xiaoli Wang, Shuo Wang, Siyu Zhu, Yanhua Yuan, Michael A. Morse, Amy Hobeika, and Herbert Kim Lyerly. “Adoptive immunotherapy with autologous T-cell infusions reduces opioid requirements in advanced cancer patients.” Pain 161, no. 1 (January 2020): 127–34. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000001702.

PMID
31568023
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Huang, Lefu, Guoliang Qiao, Michael A. Morse, Xiaoli Wang, Xinna Zhou, Jiangping Wu, Amy Hobeika, Jun Ren, and Herbert K. Lyerly. “Predictive significance of T cell subset changes during ex vivo generation of adoptive cellular therapy products for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer.” Oncol Lett 18, no. 6 (December 2019): 5717–24. https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2019.10964.

PMID
31788044
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Strickler, John H., Christel N. Rushing, Donna Niedzwiecki, Abigail McLeod, Ivy Altomare, Hope E. Uronis, S David Hsu, et al. “A phase Ib study of capecitabine and ziv-aflibercept followed by a phase II single-arm expansion cohort in chemotherapy refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.” Bmc Cancer 19, no. 1 (November 1, 2019): 1032. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-019-6234-8.

PMID
31675952
Full Text

Morse, Michael A., Michael J. Overman, Leighanne Hartman, Taline Khoukaz, Edith Brutcher, Heinz-Josef Lenz, Ajlan Atasoy, Tong Shangguan, Huanyu Zhao, and Bassel El-Rayes. “Safety of Nivolumab plus Low-Dose Ipilimumab in Previously Treated Microsatellite Instability-High/Mismatch Repair-Deficient Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.” Oncologist 24, no. 11 (November 2019): 1453–61. https://doi.org/10.1634/theoncologist.2019-0129.

PMID
31147488
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Qiao, Guoliang, Xiaoli Wang, Xinna Zhou, Michael A. Morse, Jiangping Wu, Shuo Wang, Yuguang Song, et al. “Immune correlates of clinical benefit in a phase I study of hyperthermia with adoptive T cell immunotherapy in patients with solid tumors.” Int J Hyperthermia 36, no. sup1 (November 2019): 74–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/02656736.2019.1647350.

PMID
31795830
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Lv, Shuzhen, Shuo Wang, Guoliang Qiao, Xiaoli Wang, Xinna Zhou, Fengcai Yan, Yanping Li, et al. “Functional CD3+CD8+PD1- T Cell Accumulation and PD-L1 Expression Increases During Tumor Invasion in DCIS of the Breast.” Clin Breast Cancer 19, no. 5 (October 2019): e617–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clbc.2019.04.001.

PMID
31101455
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Clarke, Jeffrey Melson, Gerard C. Blobe, John H. Strickler, Hope Elizabeth Uronis, S Yousuf Zafar, Michael Morse, Evan Dropkin, et al. “A phase Ib study of the combination regorafenib with PF-03446962 in patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (REGAL-1 trial).” Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 84, no. 4 (October 2019): 909–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-019-03916-0.

PMID
31444620
Full Text

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