Grant: Project Grant

All of the cells in our body are coated with different types of sugar molecules. Cells in our immune system have ways of "tasting" these sugars. Some types of sugars taste good to our immune system, signaling that our cells are healthy and that everything is normal. Other sugars (like those attached to invading bacteria, viruses or cancer cells) taste bad to our immune cells, triggering them to activate and try to protect us from disease. Sometimes our cells can become altered in ways that lead them to produce different or abnormal types of sugar molecules on their surface. When this happens, it can lead our immune cells to overlook unhealthy cells (in the case of cancer). This proposal aims to study a specific set of carbohydrates that regulate activity of important immune cells called T-cells. T-cells are highly significant because they are the primary type of cell involved in killing cancer cells before they can form a tumor. Our research aims to discover how sugars regulate the ability of T-cells to attack and destroy cancer. By better understanding this, we will then be able to design better immunotherapeutic strategies and improve treatment options for patients living with cancer.