Dr. Susan Bullman is an Associate Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center, with joint appointments in Immunology and Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, and is an Associate Member of the James P. Allison Institute. Before joining MD Anderson in 2024, she was an Assistant Professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where she launched her independent research group in 2019.

Dr. Bullman’s program focuses on how tumor-infiltrating microbes influence cancer progression, immune modulation, and treatment response. After earning her PhD in infectious disease in 2013, she completed postdoctoral training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute. During this time, she published a landmark Science study showing that the oncomicrobe Fusobacterium nucleatum persists in CRC, including distant metastases, and can be therapeutically targeted.

As an independent investigator, Dr. Bullman has demonstrated that intratumoral microbiota form spatially distinct niches within colorectal and oral tumors, associating with specific epithelial and immune cell types to drive cancer progression and therapy resistance. Her team also identified a genetically distinct F. nucleatum clade that dominates the CRC niche and exhibits metabolic adaptations enabling tumor colonization and immune suppression.

Her group integrates spatial omics, single-cell sequencing, and in vivo modeling to dissect these tumor-microbe-immune interactions and translate them into therapeutic strategies. She has received major awards including multiple NIH/NCI R01s, a Keck Foundation Award, and a $4M CPRIT Rising-Star Award, and has been recognized as a STAT Wunderkind and one of the field’s 40 Under 40 in Cancer Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders by AVBCC.