Funding outcome

Some rare gynecological cancers, including endometrial and ovarian cancers, can become highly aggressive over time, making them difficult to treat and leading to poor outcomes. These cancers not only carry genetic changes that drive tumor growth but they are also capable of escaping the detection of the body's immune system which normally polices the body and eliminates any foreign or abnormal cells including cancer cells. Our study aims to understand how these highly aggressive endometrial and ovarian tumors can escape the detection of the body's immune cells and how we can use drugs to wake up the immune system to attack the cancer cells. So far, one of the mechanisms we found involves the loss of a key antigen presenting protein which makes the cancer cells invisible to the body's policing immune cells. We are currently testing different drugs that can make the cancer cells visible to the immune cells by reversing the loss of this key antigen presenting protein. We believe the findings from this study will provide critical clues on how we can wake up and activate the body's immune system to effectively kill the cancer cells. This will not only improve the treatment outcome of women afflicted by these aggressive gynecologic cancers but potentially offer a cure from such deadly disease.