Immune therapies have revolutionized cancer medicine by re-activating the immune system and enabling its cancer-fighting T cells to again, kill tumor cells. However, for many cancers, including breast cancer (BC) and the deadly triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the new immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are not enough. The ICIs have only a modest response.
While BCs with high levels of cancer-fighting T cells exhibit better overall survival, those with an abundance of macrophages (another immune cell type) instead correlate with a poor outcome. Dr. Lisa Coussens’ research shows that macrophages in BC block the cancer-fighting properties of T cells and thus, aid tumor growth.
Significantly, her lab demonstrated the suppression of T cells by macrophages could be alleviated by a combination of two to four specific combinations of drugs – given in a step-wise addition – with four drugs resulting in the best outcome.
With NFCR support, her lab is evaluating the pathways and protein candidates from omic’ data – such as genomic and proteomic data, (DNA, RNA, and proteins) – in BC models that contribute to a response or resistance to these four treatments.
To accomplish the complex ‘omic’ analyses, Dr. Coussens is collaborating with NFCR-supported scientist, Dr. Elana Fertig, an expert mathematician and systems biologist who develops powerful computer-based methods to analyze ‘omic’ data in response and resistance to cancer treatments. The scientists will compare the candidates from BC models with human datasets.
Impact
The identification and validation of biomarkers of the different cell states during the four treatments may predict a patient’s response to each treatment. The biomarkers can help stratify patients for doctors to precisely deliver the treatments to individual patients, improving outcomes for patients with TNBC and other BCs.
Significantly; comparison of the biomarkers to those in datasets for other types of cancer may offer the same precise administration of treatments, giving many patients a better outcome and hope for long-term survival.
