Megan Ruhland, PhD

Dendritic cells are a type of immune cell that patrols tissues to find signs of disease. When they find a tumor, they can pick up pieces of multiple different cell types including normal cells, bacteria, and pieces of the tumor called antigens. Their main job is to carry these tumor antigens to special T cells that can kill tumors. They show the antigens to the T cells to let them know there is cancer in the body and guide the T cells to attack the tumor. In places like the skin, dendritic cells can pick up both harmless skin antigens and dangerous melanoma tumor antigens at the same time. This is tricky because dendritic cells need to show the harmful melanoma antigens to T cells to fight the cancer, but they also have to hide the harmless skin antigens from T cells so they don’t mistakenly attack healthy tissue. Our research shows that when dendritic cells take in many different types of antigens at once, it’s harder for them to tell the T cells about the tumor. This can weaken the immune system’s response to cancer. We are studying how dendritic cells can better separate these antigens to improve how they activate T cells against melanoma. Our goal is to use this knowledge to create better treatments that boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. This could lead to more effective therapies that protect normal tissues and strengthen the immune response against tumors.