Immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system, is one of the most promising forms of cancer therapy and has been shown to work well against some types of cancer. But in early studies, breast cancer has proven to be largely resistant to immunotherapies, which are effective in only about 5 to 10 percent of patients whose tumors have spread or metastasized.
The fact that immunotherapy does work for some patients indicates that there is a signal for activity, and scientists are trying to make more breast tumors responsive to immunotherapy by increasing their visibility to the immune system.
A new study by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators suggests that targeting specific molecules in the tumor called methylating agents can turn up the immune response. Principal investigator and corresponding author Justin Balko, PhD, PharmD, led the study recently published in Nature Communications. Balko, assistant professor of Medicine, serves as leader of Molecular Oncology in the VICC Center for Cancer Targeted Therapies.
Read the rest of the article about Balko and his research here.