Team’s ‘putting cancer to sleep’

AUSTRALIAN scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how the immune system puts skin cancer to “sleep”, potentially paving the way for improved treatments.

Pioneering research published in the journal Nature investigated the role of a particular immune cell, tissueresident memory T (TRM), in controlling the growth of melanoma tumours.

A team – including Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Perth’s Telethon Kids Institute – found the cells were able to control the tumour in mice for the life of the animal, which was likely to equate to decades of protection in humans.

University of Melbourne PhD student Simone Park, from the Doherty Institute, said: “Using a special microscope, we could see individual melanoma cells sitting in the skin of the mouse, and could watch the T cells move through the skin, find the melanoma cells and control the growth of those cells ...

“If you could make more of these TRM cells through immunotherapies, or enhance the activity of those that are already there in some way, you could boost anti-tumour immunity.”

While increased TRM cells have already been associated with better outcomes in cancer patients, the way they work to suppress tumours has remained unknown.

“We now have a much better understanding of which T cells are important in controlling skin cancers and how those cells are working but there is still much more work to do to make these cells work even better,” Doherty Institute laboratory head and University of Melbourne Associate Professor Thomas Gebhardt said.

Researchers hope the findings will lead to improvements in existing cancer immunotherapies.

WE NOW HAVE A MUCH BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF WHICH T CELLS ARE IMPORTANT IN CONTROLLING SKIN CANCERS

PROFESSOR THOMAS GEBHARDT