Dr Paul Huang
Institute of Cancer Research
Awarded: £150,000
The challenge
Leiomyosarcoma is one of the most common subtypes of soft tissue sarcoma. Sadly, standard drugs aren’t effective over the long term for many patients. A new type of treatment called immunotherapy works well for some cancer types, but clinical trials have shown that only a small amount of leiomyosarcoma patients benefit.
The team on this project want to explore if immunotherapy can work in leiomyosarcoma. But not enough is known about the exact combinations, timing and sequence of drugs needed for a long-term response to treatment for these patients. In addition, many immunotherapies work by recognising and targeting proteins on the surface of cancer cells. But we don’t know enough about these targets in leiomyosarcoma.
How will this project tackle this challenge?
This work will analyse the immunotherapy targets on the surface of leiomyosarcoma cells. This will provide a direct link to discover new and better combinations of treatments, to translate into a clinical setting in future.
The research team will take cells grown in a laboratory and real tumour samples from patients and grow them in an ‘organ-in-chip’ device. This can mimic how the sarcoma and drugs interact in the body. The team will test different immunotherapy drug combinations and sequences, observing changes in cell growth and death to assess how the sarcoma tumours respond.
What this means for people affected by sarcoma
This will give us a better understanding of the immunotherapy drug targets in leiomyosarcoma. In turn, this study will provide the basis for developing clinical studies of better immunotherapy combinations, to improve patient care and outcomes.
