Seth Pollack
Northwestern University, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Many cancer immunotherapies that work well against blood cancers fail against solid tumors, partly because tumors build a surrounding environment that shuts down immune cells. Testing ways to overcome this is hard in mice, whose immune systems differ from ours.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
cancer immunotherapy
natural killer cells
NK cells
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2030
What they work on
- Determine a safe and effective dose of B10G5, an antibody that neutralizes the tumor-shed immune-suppressing protein MIC, and test whether it activates NK cells within canine soft tissue sarcomas.
- Optimize transfer of NK cells, immune cells that kill abnormal cells, into dogs with sarcoma by testing whether light chemotherapy beforehand helps the dog's own or donor NK cells persist and multiply.
- Test whether B10G5 works together with adoptively transferred NK cells to eliminate naturally occurring soft tissue sarcomas in pet dogs.
- Run a placebo-controlled veterinary trial testing whether injecting the weakened virus r3LCMV into tumors before surgery lengthens disease-free survival in dogs with oral mucosal melanoma.
- Compare tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) grown from r3LCMV-treated or placebo-treated canine melanomas for their features, lab activity, and ability to treat metastatic disease.
More about the research
Two projects take a different route. They study pet dogs that develop cancers on their own, which closely resemble the same cancers in people. One project aims to boost natural killer cells. The other uses an engineered virus to awaken immune responses in melanoma.
Why it matters
These projects could help people with solid tumors that resist current immune therapies. These include patients with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma and mucosal melanoma, a deadly cancer with few good options. Results from dogs with naturally occurring cancers may predict human responses better than mouse studies. This could speed the testing of anti-MIC antibody and NK cell combinations, and of virus-based treatments, in human clinical trials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Antonia Rotolo
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Generate optimized CAR-iNKT cells for solid tumors by pairing high-performing variants of the natural iNKT cell receptor (iTCR) with chimeric antigen receptor constructs that redirect the cells to tumor markers.
Wayne Yokoyama
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify the effector mechanisms by which NK cells constrain immune checkpoint therapy in mouse tumor models, using NK cell depletion, NK-deficient mice and transfer of NK cells into tumors.
Jeffrey Miller
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
Engineer iPSC-derived NK (iNK) cells with gene edits that improve homing and migration into tumors, tolerance of low oxygen (hypoxia), and survival after transfer into patients with solid tumors.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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