We’re bringing together leaders in cancer research.
Speaker
Jennifer Guerriero, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Surgery
Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School
“Unraveling the complexities of tumor associated macrophages for anti-cancer therapy”
Tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) represent a significant proportion of solid tumors and enhance tumor cell growth, metastasis and importantly, inhibit anti-tumor responses of T cells. Our recent work has shown that removal or conversion of TAMs to an anti-tumor phenotype enhances chemo- and immuno-therapy establishing TAMs as targets for anti-cancer therapy. We recently revealed that some types of therapy such as poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition (PARPi) can drive development of highly suppressive TAMs, restricting anti-tumor T cell function and survival. Murine models demonstrate that in the absence of TAMs, PARPi induce a robust recruitment of cytotoxic T cells and durable antitumor responses. Therefore, targeting TAMs is a promising strategy for improving PARPi treatment efficacy. However, while there is an urgent need to target TAMs during tumorigenesis and cancer therapy, to date, failure to fully characterize TAM biology and classify multiple subsets has hindered advancement in therapeutic targeting. Here we will the functional and phenotypic characterization of TAM subsets associated with cancer, before and after treatment, as well as novel TAM-modulating strategies and combinations that are likely to enhance current therapies and overcome chemo- and immuno-therapy resistance.