Around 300,000 people in the EU with metastatic neuroblastoma, breast, or prostate cancer do not respond to current immunotherapies, and a new research network is trying to find out why. The problem is that immunotherapies—treatments that harness the immune system to attack tumours—work well for only a few cancer types. For these three cancers, the tumour cells somehow evade or suppress the immune response once they spread to the brain, bone, or liver. The Mac4Me network aims to map exactly how tumour cells interact with immune cells and the surrounding tissue at these metastatic sites. The researchers will use animal-free organ-on-chip systems that mimic early metastasis formation, then combine that data with samples from real patient metastases. Machine learning will sift through the results to identify new immune targets for therapy. The project also embeds patient and public input from the start, aiming to shape both the science and the shared decision-making around future treatments. If successful, the work could lead to immunotherapies that work for cancers that currently resist them. It also trains a new generation of scientists in participatory research methods, which could shift how cancer research is conducted more broadly.
View original technical description
Immunotherapies promise to be the major break-through in the treatment of metastatic cancer, but effectiveness is limited to few cancer types. Metastatic neuroblastoma, breast and prostate cancer, affecting approximately 300,000 EU-27 inhabitants of all age groups in 2020, respond not or very poorly to current immunotherapies. To establish more effective immunotherapies, we need to better understand the specific tumour cell-immune host interactions at the metastatic site. The Mac4Me Doctoral Network adopts an innovative, multidisciplinary and cross-sectional approach, with a unique and dedicated research training programme to equip young researchers with scientific knowledge and transferable skills that are essential for today's great demand in both academic and non-academic sectors. Mac4Me aims to understand the tumour cell-immune host interactions at the metastatic site. with an in-depth molecular and mechanistic understanding of the immune and matrix changes induced by tumour cells. We will use innovative animal-free organ-onchip systems, that recapitulate early metastasis formation of brain, bone and liver. The retrieved knowledge from the preclinical models will be integrated in data from established clinical metastases and AI machine learning algorithms will be applied to identify new immune targets. Mac4Me will align with patients and the general public from the very beginning thereby bringing societal expectations and patient needs into the centre of the project to pave the way for new standards for shared decision making and acceptable health care solutions. Mac4Me will prepare a next generation of young scientists to start their own career as independent researchers being equipped with scientific knowledge and personal skills and integrating participatory science as a starting point to address the societal demand for more effective treatment solutions for incurable metastatic disease, such as neuroblastoma, breast and prostate cancer.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know