Michael Bhatt

Michael Bhatt has contributed to developing and validating the tumor inflammation signature (TIS) and interferon-gamma gene expression scores as pan-tumor biomarkers predicting response to pembrolizumab and other PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors. His research characterized the TIS as an 18-gene expression profile enriched for interferon-gamma response, antigen presentation, and T cell activation genes that predicts pembrolizumab benefit across multiple solid tumor types better than PD-L1 expression alone. He has investigated how TIS correlates with known response-predictive features including TIL infiltration, CD8+ T cell density, and T cell inflamed versus excluded versus desert phenotypes in tumor microenvironments. His translational work on combining TIS with tumor mutational burden and PD-L1 for multi-biomarker patient selection models has contributed to precision immunotherapy approaches across tumor types.