2024-25 Team Science Grantees: Lindsay G. Cowell, PhD, Salvatore LoCoco, MD, Elena Lucas, MD & Nancy L. Monson, PhD
About Project
Leveraging Cancer-Associated T cell Responses for the Early Detection of High-Grade Serous Carcinoma of Tubo-Ovarian Origin (HGSC)
PROJECT SUMMARY
Blood-based biomarkers for ovarian cancer early detection are urgently needed. Decades of searching have yielded none with high enough sensitivity and specificity for screening average-risk populations. Successful blood-based screening will likely require assays that combine multiple different types of biomarkers. We are pursuing a novel approach: seeking to detect immune responses against the cancer rather than detecting the cancer directly. Our approach detects immune responses driven by T cells, which are immune cells that express receptors on their cell surface that enable them to recognize and kill tumor cells. By comparing T cells from ovarian cancer tissue with T cells from healthy ovary and Fallopian tube tissue, we discovered a pattern in the T cell receptors from ovarian cancer T cells that distinguishes, with high accuracy, women with ovarian cancer from cancer-free women. Here we propose to test the pattern using cancer tissue and blood from the same cancer patient and healthy ovarian tissue and blood from the same cancer-free control women. We will assess whether the biomarker can distinguish women with cancer from cancer-free women using the blood samples, and we will assess the correlation between the presence of a specific sequence pattern in blood and its presence in cancer tissue. Success of this study will advance the state-of-the-art in blood-based cancer screening. It will advance a blood based biomarker for ovarian cancer early detection and lay the foundation for pursuing a similar strategy for other cancer types.
