Tell us about yourself and where you work.
I am an Associate Professor of Immune Cell Dynamics and Principal Investigator at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. I have a long-lasting interest in understanding how T cells, a type of immune cell that is key to fighting infection and cancer, are primed and regulated in space and time. One major goal of my group is to decipher why anti-tumour immunity is not good enough to control cancer and explore new options to improve anti-tumour immunity.
Tell us a little about your research.
One focus of my lab is understanding how the immune response interacts with and shapes tumours, and whether that immune response can spread, impacting other organs in our body.
The project funded by the OCION development fund examines the relationship between the immune response triggered in cancer and atherosclerosis (artery narrowing caused by cholesterol and fat build-up). We know that cardiovascular disease, such as atherosclerosis, is a long-term complication of cancer and anti-cancer treatments, yet we don’t know how to deal with it or prevent it.
Anti-cancer treatments which aim at awakening immune responses, called checkpoint blockade, further increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, highlighting the role of our immune system in both cancer and atherosclerosis. We therefore want to investigate whether the immune response against cancer can influence the severity of atherosclerosis.
What are the potential implications of this work for patients?
Our long-term goal is to identify ways to target the immune system to induce anti-cancer responses without increasing the likelihood of developing cardiovascular diseases. This would reduce cardiovascular complications following immunotherapies, ultimately making those treatments more tolerable.
What do you think are the major obstacles for the cancer field to overcome in the next 10 years?
Immunotherapies have revolutionised treatments for advanced cancer. However, even when the treatment is initially working, too many patients will stop treatment because of debilitating side effects or developing resistance.
Tackling those issues is paramount to design immunotherapies that offer long-term benefits to patients with advanced cancer. To do this, we need a fundamental mechanistic understanding of the immune response to cancer, how it spreads throughout the body and how immunotherapy and tumour escape reshape the immune system.
What does Oxford Cancer and OCION mean for you and your research?
Oxford Cancer and OCION have been incredible in helping me achieve my goals. Through pump-priming mechanisms, they have allowed me to embark on new important scientific avenues that are now key to my research group. Once again, the project funded by OCION will spearhead a new, exciting direction for the lab which would not have been possible otherwise.