Potentiating Immunotherapy in Microsatellite-Stable Colorectal Cancer
Abstract
I received my MD degree in Italy in 2009, but my strong interest in translational research began when I started working in laboratories as a summer student during my third year of university. During my last year of fellowship in medical oncology, and as a first-year PhD student, I decided to move from Italy (Seconda Universita’ degli Study di Napoli) to the United States in order to undergo further research fellowship training and join the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the University of Colorado directed by Dr. Gail Eckhardt. During this time, I have been working on several different laboratory research projects that focused on combining novel drugs that target colorectal cancer to overcome resistance. The exciting results obtained in the last few years with the use of treatments that reactivate your immune system to fight against cancer (known as immunotherapies), made me be willing to add a new focus to my career on improving treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, combining the two disciplines of oncology and immunology. Receiving this award will help me launch my career and I will be able to achieve the goals of this project and establish myself as an independent translational researcher in the very new and innovative field of immuno-oncology. The Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program Career Development Award would offer me the opportunity to initiate this research project as an assistant professor in this new and innovative field and achieve the necessary skills and training to become a leading researcher, providing the critical protected time to peruse my career goals. Under the guidance of a great team composed of highly experienced mentors and collaborators, I will be able to improve my knowledge in therapies for metastatic CRC early in my career. Being a scientist and a clinician, I am in a strategic position to implement our findings, which I hope will be translated into the clinic and significantly improve patient outcomes by driving new ideas and data to support a clinical trial. Moreover, I will be participating to national and international meetings, and be responsible for presenting the data of my project during lab and interdepartmental meetings that will give me the opportunity to obtain feedback from diverse perspectives from other experts and leaders in the tumor immunology field. Research data has shown that colon cancer is very relevant to military Service personnel, because it is the most common cancer type in this population, perhaps as a result of being exposed to different chemical and radioactive agents during their Service that may cause cancer. This proposal would provide an opportunity to find new treatments for colorectal cancer for which military personnel may be at increased risk. The use of new drugs that work specifically on the human immune defense system is growing as a result of the sometimes-dramatic benefits being observed in the treatment of several cancers. Unfortunately, most patients with metastatic colon cancer (95%) do not respond to immunotherapy treatment, and this reduces the use of these treatments. In the efforts to better understand and improve immune therapies, a major limitation is that existing animal models are inappropriate and insufficient to provide an understanding of how these drugs work and their relevancy as to how this will translate to treatment of human cancer patients. The goal of this proposal is to test novel combination therapies by using miniaturized and simplified versions of colorectal cancer and a specialized mouse model of colorectal cancer through which these medications may be tested in order to better select the patients that may benefit from such treatments and fully understand the way these drugs work against cancer cells. The model will be created through the use of human cells that will produce a human-like immune system in the mice and then treat them with an immune-targeting cancer drugs. This is not a first attemp
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 10, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2010366
Entities
People
- Anna Capasso
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Texas at Austin