How does cancer commandeer our immune system?
Assistant Research Fellow Jody Hazlett investigating the immune response in breast cancer.
The immune system can assist patient health by combating cancers, but it can also be hijacked by tumours and used to deliver factors required by cancer cells to grow. By understanding more about our bodies' own defence systems, we are learning how tumours can recruit immune cells for their own purposes. Once we know how the immune system is commandeered by cancers, we can target the mechanism.
Cancer and viruses
Some viruses are known to cause cancer. One is the human papillomavirus ( HPV ) which can cause cervical cancer.
Using HPV in the lab provides an extraordinary opportunity to explore tumour cell invasion, and to identify ways to treat it. Invasiveness is a defining step in malignancy. Any treatment that blocks invasion and the spread of cancer cells would drastically reduce cancer mortality.
Related topics
- Enhancing CAR T cell therapy
- How do immune cells help breast cancers to evade therapy?
- Immunotherapy targets
- Immune responses in colorectal cancer
- Human papillomavirus (HPV) research
Research personnel
- Professor John McCall
- Associate Professor Anita Dunbier
- Jody Hazlett
- Professor Merilyn Hibma
- Professor Sarah Hook
- Professor Roslyn Kemp
- Dr Peter Mace
- Associate Professor Alex McLellan
- Ginny Niemi
Our postgraduate students
Past Students
- Julia Leman (MSc)
- Garrett Chin (BSc Hons)
- Andy Highton (PhD)
- Doug Gaskarth (MSc)
- Kirsten Ward-Hartstonge (PhD)
- Georgia Bell (PGDipSci research project)
- Andy Highton (PhD)
- Ed Taylor (PhD)
- Sam Norton (PhD)
- Shirley Shen (MSc)