Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths worldwide. Treatment options for patients with advanced colorectal cancer are very limited and resistance to cancer drugs is a major problem in treating this disease. In recent years there has been little progress in new treatment options and therefore new strategies to treat the disease are urgently needed. Activating immune cells could represent one such strategy. Based on exciting new evidence from Dr. Ryans lab, this project aims to demonstrate that using low dose chemotherapy can sensitise colon cancer cells to the effects of new drugs that stimulate the immune system i.e. immunotherapy. The project will focus on immune cells called macrophages, whose role includes clearance of tumour cells from the body. The desired outcome of the research which we will carry out, is to understand if low dose chemotherapy can be used to sensitise colon cancer cells to macrophage mediated clearance. As part of Dr. Ryans larger research group, ultimately it is envisaged that this novel approach could inform targeted ways to make a patient’s immune response to cancer stronger. Importantly, since immunotherapy works in a different way than chemotherapy, the problem of resistance to currently used anti-cancer drugs could be overcome.
