You've heard the saying, "It takes a village." This adage rings especially true in the battle against high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC), the most common form of ovarian cancer. Just as a village thrives through the contributions of its members, our immune system depends on a variety of cells to fight this formidable cancer.
Some cells, like killer T cells, play a more prominent role, but the truth is that there are many other immune cells involved. And while we know this combined effort is crucial in the fight against cancer, we don’t fully understand the roles of each cell or how to harness them for more effective immunotherapies.
Thanks to $2.4 million in new funding from a 2024 Terry Fox New Frontiers Program Project Grant (PPG), a team of researchers across Canada aims to study this immune “village.” Their goal is to better understand how these cells work together to recognize and kill tumour cells while sparing healthy tissues. Led by Dr. Brad Nelson, a distinguished scientist with the BC Cancer Research Institute and director of the Deeley Research Centre in Victoria, the team plans to use this new knowledge to develop treatments more effective than current options, which only see about 15 percent of patients surviving 10 years or more.
"Ovarian cancer remains a very challenging disease to treat. While traditional chemotherapy and surgery can be helpful for a few years, relapse is common,” explains Dr. Nelson. “Immunotherapy, a relatively new treatment, is working very well for some cancers but has not been very effective against HGSC. Despite good evidence that the immune system recognizes and tries to fight ovarian cancer, it often falls short.”
While most immunotherapy research has focused on killer T cells, an important part of the immune system in recognizing and killing cancer cells, the Nelson-led team will broaden the scope to understand the roles of other immune cells in the battle against HGSC.
“This PPG funding allows us to take a fresh look at the problem, exploring beyond T cells to include B cells and Natural Killer (NK) cells,” he says. “For us, it’s about coming up with new ideas for immunotherapy that we can move into clinical trials. Over the next four years, we want to go beyond generating ideas and making discoveries to developing actual therapies that can reach patients.”
The team is divided into three projects:
- Project 1: Dr. Nelson will lead a team studying B cells, which flag tumours for destruction by other immune cells and are often found alongside T cells in the tumour.
- Project 2: Dr. Jeanette Boudreau, scientific director at the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute in Halifax and a former Terry Fox New Investigator, will lead a team studying the unique ways that NK cells recognize and kill cancer cells, including those flagged by B cells.
- Project 3: Dr. Naoto Hirano, a senior scientist and chair of the Immuno-Oncology Program at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, will lead a team exploring a promising yet underexplored mechanism used by killer T cells to recognize tumours. This mechanism involves NK cells, allowing them to team up to patrol the body for cancer cells.
Additionally, the PPG is supported by a Core group, which will use state-of-the-art technologies to visualize the immune village directly in tumour tissues and create a dataset that will support discoveries in each project. This will be co-led by Drs. Farouk Nathoo, a professor in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Victoria, and Céline M. Laumont, a scientist at the Deeley Research Centre.
Dr. Nelson emphasizes that uncovering new avenues for immunotherapy and moving them through the lab and to clinical trials is a massive endeavor that’s only possible through teamwork.
Peggy Pickett and Anne Goodbody, patient partners representing the ovarian cancer community stated, “We were warmly welcomed by team members who enthusiastically helped us grasp the importance of the science behind this project. We became fully integrated team members and contribute our own expertise. We believe unwaveringly in the talent of this team and the powerful potential of the science being applied to move the needle in treating our challenging disease.”
Dr. Nelson adds, “The Terry Fox Research Institute is one of the few funding agencies in the country that provides team grants, investing millions of dollars in collaborative efforts. Our team is honoured to receive such a prestigious and transformative grant from a Canadian leader and long-time supporter of peer-reviewed, innovative cancer research.”