Finding the sweet spot for treatment

What you need to know

• Cancer cells can hide from the immune system by covering their surfaces with sugars
• Dr Emma Scott has done research to identify the mechanisms for this sugar disguise but needs to understand more and figure out how to stop them
• If this is successful, it could lead to new treatments that could allow immunotherapy drugs to work for more men

Activating the immune system to target cancer is a powerful new approach to treatment. Dr Emma Scott will study how sugars on the surface of prostate cancer cells affect their interaction with immune cells and she will test drugs to alter these sugars and combine them with immunotherapy drugs.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing

Cancer cells often find ways to evade the immune system, one of which is to disguise themselves like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. By adding lots of specific sugars to their surface, they can prevent the immune system from recognising them as a threat. Unfortunately, this disguise also stops immunotherapies, drugs that prompt immune cells to attack the cancer, from working. Clinical trials of immunotherapies in prostate cancer have had dramatic results, but only in a tiny minority of men. Finding a way to make them effective for more men could be a possible cure for advanced prostate cancer.

Block the sugar

Dr Scott’s previous work has identified which sugars are on the surface of prostate cancer cells and how they help the tumours to grow. She has made prostate cancer cells with high levels of these sugars on their surface, and now she will study how they interact with immune cells. She aims to use drugs to alter these sugars, leaving the cancer cells open to attack, and then combine this with immunotherapy to prime the immune system.

Developing skills

This grant will fund a four-year fellowship for Dr Scott, during which she will spend six months at Stanford University in the US, which is a world-leading centre for this type of research. There, she will learn a cutting-edge technique for studying sugars which is not readily available here. This opportunity will give Dr Scott new skills and expertise to bring back to the UK.

Combining treatments

Currently, there is no cure for advanced prostate cancer. Activating the immune system is one possible solution, but we need to find a way to make it work for more men. The approach of combining immunotherapy and sugar-targeting drugs is already being tested in clinical trials for breast cancer. By the end of this project, Dr Scott hopes to have the data to show how we could do this for men with prostate cancer.

Grant information

Reference – TLD-PF19-002

Researcher – Dr Emma Scott

Institution – Newcastle University

Award - £299,443