Research Projects

Cancer is a multifactorial disease characterized by several hallmarks, including immune evasion of cancer cells. Metastatic breast cancer is one of the leading cause of death in women and therapeutic options are limited. Current advances in cancer therapy aim to activate the host immune response against the cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies, chimeric antigen receptor-T cells (CAR-T cells) and recently natural killer (NK) cells have gained attention recently in cancer therapy due to their unique advantage of identifying and eliminating the cancer cells while leaving the healthy cells unaffected. NK cells do not require an external stimulus or antigens to act, and their function depends on MHC-I expression. The lack of MHC-I expression on the cancer cells activates the NK cells, which eliminate the cancer cells through the secretion of perforin and granzyme. NK cell activity also depends on the presence of activating and inactivation receptors on the cell surface, and thus, NK cells can be modified to act against cancer cells. In addition, several therapeutic strategies are available to treat cancer cells at the primary site; however, effective treatment strategies are not available to eliminate cancer cells at the metastatic site. Recent evidences suggest that the presence of NK cells at the metastatic site maintains the cancer cells in a dormant state. However, the cancer cells modulate the microenvironment cells to inhibit the NK cells. Understanding this cross-talk between the cancer cells, NK cells and the tumor microenvironment will help in identifying novel therapeutic strategies to treat metastatic breast cancers.