Katelyn Byrne, PhD

Our immune system contains cells that keep it in balance, but some of these cells actually stop the body from attacking tumors. We found that a promising cancer drug can change these cells, turning them from tumor protectors into tumor fighters. Our project studies how this change happens, and how we can use it to help patients. We use specially designed mouse models of pancreatic cancer to perform these studies. These models let us tag the immune cells of interest with a fluorescent tag so that we can track the cells even after we give the drug and the cells change their job. This allows us to study how our drug works with other cells to cause the immune cell switch into tumor-killing cells, and to help us determine how the changed cells actually fight the cancer cells. We are comparing the genes of the changes cells to unchanged cells to determine a unique signature of these cells – which we will then look for in patient tumors.This research is important because it could explain why some patients respond well to cancer therapies that use the immune system, while other patients do not. If we can find out which patients are most likely to benefit from this style of drug, doctors could better match patients to the right drugs. We can also design better future drugs for other patients, bringing us closer to cancer care built around each patient’s unique needs.