Researchers in the Cancer Immunology, Inflammation and Tolerance program use a range of techniques to study how the immune system influences tumorigenesis and cancer therapy. The immune system can inhibit or promote tumor progression in local tissues where pre-malignancies form. Major program themes are to elucidate
The scientific rationale for this dual approach is that pre-malignant cells create and sustain tolerance during tumor progression, while breaking tumor-associated tolerance is necessary for successful anti-tumor treatment. Hence, program goals are to elucidate molecular and cellular pathways at sites of inflammation that promote or break immune tolerance using pre-clinical mouse models of tumor progression and autoimmune syndromes, and developing novel immunotherapies to treat these syndromes more effectively by targeting tolerance pathways. To this end, program faculty also engage in promoting pre-clinical research and early-phase clinical trials of novel vaccine adjuvants to improve cancer immunotherapy, in some cases with corporate partners.
To pursue these focused research themes and scientific goals, program faculty employ many state-of-the-art techniques, facilities, and unique resources, including flow cytometric sorting and analysis, a range of molecular imaging techniques, genomic analysis, and genetically modified mouse strains. Future program development will build on existing CIT program strengths by recruiting new investigators with expertise in inflammation, immunological, and metabolic research to complement current research focused on regulation of adaptive immunity.
I was trained as a physician, but has been fascinated by how our body’s immune system has been so effective to control not only microbial infections, but also cancer cells. We had studied the basic mechanism of how cancer vaccines activated immune responses and applied the vaccine design technologies into developing liver cancer vaccines. Over the last decade, research in my lab has been focusing on identifying novel T cell receptors (TCR) and on developing new chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) for liver cancer immunotherapy. We are fortunate that our research has been continuously funded by NCI/NIH grants. Our goal is to engineer immune T cells to become potent and targeted fighters to eliminate cancer cells and cure cancer patients.
“Getting to meet incredible physicians and scientists and learn about the fabulous science that takes place here has been the best part of my job so far,” Kaur said of her new position as associate director of basic science at the Georgia Cancer Center.
“Cells are very complicated systems that we are still working to understand, so we had to find a way to simplify it," said Abdul N. Malmi-Kakkada, PhD.
Dr. Justin Xavier Moore has been recognized with an American Association for Cancer Research Minorities in Cancer Research award.
"Colon cancer is largely preventable if patients undergo screening tests, like a surveillance colonoscopy starting at 45 years or earlier depending on family history."
