The goal is to activate immunity against tumor cells that go to the brain.
Helena Florindo and her team from the University of Lisbon, together with Ronit Satchi-Fainaro’s group from Tel Aviv University, are developing new methods to prevent breast cancer metastases in the brain. It is the second most common cause of brain metastasis, which can occur in up to 30% of patients, even ten years after the disease has been initially successfully treated.
The researchers’ strategy is to better arm the immune system of patients who have gone through breast cancer so that it is the body itself that fights relapse and the migration of tumor cells to the brain, instead of developing a drug that attack directly.
“We are developing two types of nanoparticles with molecules capable of reprogramming the immune defense against tumor cells. We want to prevent these cells from reinitiating the cancer and migrating to the brain, a process that we know occurs at the impasse between a supposed cure for cancer and the appearance of metastases, although we do not know how it occurs”, says Florindo. “How immune cells control communication between the brain microenvironment and tumor cells migrating to the brain is also not well understood,” he adds.
One of the problems facing the researcher and her team is preventing tumor cells from blocking the immune response. The nanoparticles they are designing would avoid this tumor camouflage. In addition, her research could shed more light on interactions between the tumor, the vascular system, and the immune system in metastatic brain cancers. “Our molecules could serve, if they work, as a curative treatment, but also as a preventive treatment to reduce the percentage of patients who develop these metastases,” he declares. flourishing J. Corbella (LV)