Juan Osorio, MD

Therapies that use the immune system to fight cancer have helped many patients. However, most patients do not benefit from this approach. In cancers that respond well to these treatments, immune cells often gather into groups inside the tumor called “immune hubs.” These hubs help immune cells to crosstalk and recognize and destroy tumor cells. Unfortunately, these structures are often missing in many common cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer, which fail to respond to these treatments. We still do not understand how these hubs form or how to create them in tumors that lack them. Our research aims to find ways to build immune hubs inside tumors that fail to respond to immunotherapy. We developed a new antibody treatment that targets the CD40 receptor. Our studies in patients and mouse models suggest that this therapy can organize immune hubs to fight cancer. These effects are even seen in breast and prostate cancer, which often resist immune therapies. Here, we will study how immune hubs form and how our CD40 drug helps create them. We will study tumors from patients and use laboratory models to better understand this process. We will also test combination treatments to further strengthen immune responses. By learning how the immune system can be organized to fight cancer, this work may lead to new therapies that help more patients to improve survival and quality of life.