Brian Miller, MD, PhD

The immune system plays a crucial role in controlling cancer growth. Immunotherapies help fight cancer by boosting the body’s immune response against the tumor. However, many patients have tumors that either don’t respond or become resistant to these treatments. One reason for this resistance is that a type of immune cell called macrophages, which are found in the tumor, can shut down the immune response and stop it from killing cancer cells. Right now, we don’t have effective treatments to target these macrophages. Our research team has discovered a new weakness in these macrophages. By blocking a special protein they use, we can stop them from taking in folate (a type of vitamin), which leads to their death. We will use patient samples and a new mouse model we created to figure out why these macrophages need folate and how we can use this information to enhance the immune response against tumors. This could lead to new treatments that specifically kill macrophages in tumors, helping more cancer patients benefit from immunotherapy.