Grant: Project Grant

Immunotherapy enables the body's defense system to identify and selectively attack cancer. Immunotherapy is successfully used to treat many cancer types, although it shows limited success for deadly brain cancers that lack T cells within the tumor. The immune system functions best to recognize tumors when there is an alarm signal released by dying tumor cells. Stressed and dying cancer cells send messages to educate immune cells that danger is apparent. Certain types of tumor cell death can be used to wake up the immune system, although it remains unknown what type of cell death and downstream processes make tumor cell death immune-stimulatory. By using engineered tumors to activate three forms of cell death, this study will identify the conditions that best alarm the immune system to fight a particular type of brain cancer. Successful completion of the project will provide the foundational knowledge required to develop new safe and effective treatments for cancer patients diagnosed with immunotherapy refractory brain cancers.