Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada, and one in four Canadians will die from the disease. Despite major progress in our understanding of cancer biology, more than 80% of patients suffering from lung, pancreatic, esophageal, and liver cancers die within five years of diagnosis. Oncolytic viruses are cancer-killing therapeutics that selectively infect and kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. Although clinical trials testing these therapies have shown promising results over the last 25 years, only 30% of patients have shown objective responses to these therapies, and resistance is common. These observations have led some to suggest that oncolytic viruses should be combined with other anti-cancer treatments to improve outcomes. Our research group and others have recently discovered that the STING signaling pathway plays an important role in modulating immune cells in tumours. These features make the STING pathway an attractive target for cancer therapies. My project aims to be the first to combine oncolytic viruses and targeting of the STING signaling pathway by using a unique delivery system called "exosome- mediated STING agonist delivery." Because the STING pathway affects many of the processes that contribute to the efficacy of oncolytic viruses (e.g., immune cell behavior), there is rationale for combining these two modalities of treatment. This combination therapy will likely increase treatment efficiency and dramatically reduce the chance of resistance, which will be tested using mouse models.