PME Special Immuno Seminar - Christopher Swart McGinnis

Metastatic Cancer Immunology at Single-Cell Resolution

Interactions between tumors and the immune system promote the generation of inflammatory and immunosuppressive immune cell populations that are necessary for metastasis. Developing anti-metastatic immunotherapies that target these interactions and make the metastatic niche hostile to disseminated tumor cells would represent a paradigm shift in cancer treatment. Two barriers exist that make achieving this goal a challenge, namely, (i) an incomplete list of anti-metastatic immunotherapy target pathways and (ii) a lack of suitable high-throughput screening platforms for identifying drug candidates. Dr. Chris McGinnis works to address these two barriers using an interdisciplinary approach spanning cancer immunology, single-cell genomics, and bioengineering.