Cell Reports<\/a>, is the product of collaboration between David Schlaepfer, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Kevin Tharp, an assistant professor in the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys.<\/p>\nPrevious research identified a problem protein, focal adhesion kinase, in several high-grade cases of ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n
In this study, scientists determined that combining FAK-inhibiting drugs with immunotherapy and chemotherapy yielded the best results in mice in suppressing tumor growth, attracting tumor-fighting immune cells and extending survival.<\/p>\n
While FAK-targeting drugs are already in clinical trials against ovarian cancer, the study indicates the three-pronged approach may be more effective.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the three together aren\u2019t very toxic to the mouse, so we\u2019re looking for a therapy that\u2019s going to be very tolerable for patients but yet have strong tumor-fighting activity,\u201d Schlaepfer said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a combination that nobody\u2019s come up with yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tharp said this approach is a way to allow tumors to be cleared out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIdentifying any treatment that unmasks the tumor to the immune system is a really important strategy to dealing with metastatic disease, which is one of the primary causes of lethality in late-stage ovarian cancer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese tumor cells have enhanced signaling that promotes their growth and survival but also masks some of this immune coordinating signal that would otherwise get the immune system to investigate what\u2019s wrong with these cells,\u201d Tharp said. \u201cWe\u2019re drugging a pathway that causes the cells to release a damage signal that allows the immune system to recognize a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study builds on work from Schlaepfer\u2019s lab and later contributions from Tharp.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had already worked out the phenomenon that inhibiting focal adhesion kinase in ovarian cancer had established a more robust anti-tumor immune response, and they had some hints as to how that could work,\u201d Tharp said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to my research program studying similar processes in other diseases, I had some clues as to how this would occur and what type of methodologies could be used to actually identify the exact molecules that were contributing to that signal to the immune system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schlaepfer said \u201cI ran into Kevin and we were talking and he got excited about the project we were working on. He had the expertise in metabolism and lipids and things went from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of had this hurdle that we couldn\u2019t get over, so it was a great collaboration.\u201d \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blocking a key protein that enables ovarian cancer has shown promise in the fight against it. But a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[11705,7,930,5184,6804,6953,74,84,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-250441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-bird-rock","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la-jolla","11":"tag-la-jolla-light","12":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","13":"tag-la-jolla-shores","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-san-diego-headlines","17":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}