Janis Marie Taube, M.D., M.Sc.

Headshot of Janis Marie Taube
  • Director, Division of Dermatopathology
  • Professor of Dermatology
Female

Expertise

Dermatopathology, Pathology

Research Interests

Prognostic and predictive value of the immunoarchitecture of melanoma; Merkel cell carcinoma; and other sold tumor types ...read more

Locations

The Johns Hopkins Hospital

600 N. Wolfe Street
Sheikh Zayed Tower Suite 907
Baltimore, MD 21287
Phone: 410-955-3484 | Fax: 410-955-2445
The Johns Hopkins Hospital - Google Maps

Background

Dr. Janis Taube is a professor of dermatology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Her area of clinical expertise is dermatopathology. Dr. Taube serves as the Director of the Division of Dermatopathology and as the Assistant Director of the Dermatoimmunology Laboratory at the School of Medicine.

Dr. Taube received her undergraduate degree in engineering from Duke University. She earned her M.D. from Tulane University and her M.Sc. in molecular medicine from University College London. She completed her residency in pathology at Johns Hopkins where she also served as the chief resident, before undertaking a dermatopathology fellowship at Stanford University. In 2009, Dr. Taube returned to Johns Hopkins for her certification in the Melanoma Clinic.

She is one of the lead scientific researchers in the Department of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins. She has written over 180 peer-reviewed publications, and her research has been cited over 70,000 times.

In addition to running her own research laboratory, she serves as the co-Director of the Mark Foundation Center for Advanced Genomics and Imaging and also as the co-Director of the Tumor Microenvironment Core Laboratory for the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

...read more

Titles

  • Director, Division of Dermatopathology
  • Co-Director Tumor Microenvironment Laboratory, Bloomberg ~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
  • Co-Director Mark Foundation Center for Advanced Genomics and Imaging
  • Professor of Dermatology
  • Professor of Oncology
  • Professor of Pathology

Departments / Divisions

Education

Degrees

  • MD; Tulane University School of Medicine (2004)

Residencies

  • Pathology; Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2008)

Fellowships

  • Dermatopathology; Stanford University School of Medicine (2009)

Board Certifications

  • American Board of Pathology (Anatomic Pathology) (2008)
  • American Board of Pathology (Dermatopathology) (2009)

Research & Publications

Research Summary

Dr. Taube’s research interests center on the immune evasion by solid tumors, specifically studying the PD-L1/PD-1 axis, and the identification of potential biomarkers that can help pre-select patients with advanced malignancies for novel immunotherapeutic treatment regimens. This requires a focus on immunohistochemical and molecular methods for identifying cell surface antigens and signaling pathways in paraffin-embedded tissue. Dr. Taube’s lab described PD-L1 (B7-H1)-mediated adaptive immune resistance by melanoma, a finding which has now been extended to other tumor types. Dr. Taube’s laboratory also developed the PD-L1 immunohistochemical assay and scoring system for the first in-human anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 immunotherapies, versions of which are now FDA approved. Ongoing laboratory efforts focus on further characterizing the local, pre-treatment tumor microenvironment with the aim of developing rational treatment combinations and improving patient selection algorithms for immunotherapeutic regimens. To that end, Dr. Taube has been collaborating with Dr. Szalay, a world expert in Astronomy and Big Data, to develop a new multispectral tissue imaging platform termed ‘AstroPath’ to further biomarker development. 

Selected Publications

Berry S, Giraldo NA, Green BF, Cottrell TR, Stein JE, Engle EL, Xu H, Ogurtsova A, Roberts C, Wang D, Nguyen P, Zhu Q, Soto-Diaz S, Loyola J, Sander IB, Wong PF, Jessel S, Doyle J, Signer D, Wilton R, Roskes JS, Eminizer M, Park S, Sunshine JC, Jaffee EM, Baras A, De Marzo AM, Topalian SL, Kluger H, Cope L, Lipson EJ, Danilova L, Anders RA, Rimm DL, Pardoll DM, Szalay AS, Taube JM. Analysis of multispectral imaging with the AstroPath platform informs efficacy of PD-1 blockade. Science. 2021;372(6547):eaba2609

Lu S, Stein JE, Rimm DL, Wang DW, Bell JW, Johnson DB, Sosman JA, Schalper KA, Anders RA, Wang H, Hoyt C, Pardoll DM, Danilova L, Taube JM. Comparison of Biomarker Modalities for Predicting Response to PD-(L)1 Checkpoint Blockade: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Oncol. 2019 Jul 18.[Epub ahead of print]

Taube JM, Klein A, Brahmer JR, Xu H, Pan X, Kim JH, Chen L, Pardoll DM, Topalian SL, Anders RA. Association of PD-1, PD-1 ligands, and other features of the tumor immune microenvironment with response to anti-PD-1 therapy. Clin Cancer Res. 2014;20(19):5064-74

Taube JM, Anders RA, Young GD, Xu H, Sharma R, Klien A, Topalian SL, Chen L. Colocalization of inflammatory response with B7-H1 [PD-L1] expression in human melanocytic lesions supports an adaptive resistance mechanism of immune escape. Sci Transl Med. 2012;4(127):127ra37

Deutsch JS, Cimino-Mathews A, Thompson E, Provencio M, Forde PM, Spicer J, Girard N, Wang D, Anders RA, Gabrielson E, Illei P, Jedrych J, Danilova L, Sunshine J, Kerr KM, Tran M, Bushong J, Cai J, Devas V, Neely J, Balli D, Cottrell TR, Baras AS, Taube JM. Association between pathologic response and survival after neoadjuvant therapy in lung cancer. Nat Med. 2024;30(1):218-28

Activities & Honors

Memberships

  • American Society of Dermatopathology
  • College of American Pathologists
  • Dermatology Foundation
  • United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology
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