Kathryn O’Donnell, PhD

Lung cancer is a deadly disease.  One common cancer treatment called immunotherapy boosts the body’s natural defenses to fight the tumor.  However, while some lung cancer patients respond well to immunotherapy treatments, other patients do not respond to the therapy.  This suggests that we need to find new ways to improve these treatments.  Our research supported by the V Foundation aims to improve the body’s ability to fight lung cancer.  We will study mechanisms to boost the effects of immunotherapy and we will test these new approaches using cancer models. This work has the potential to improve immunotherapy and expand the use of these treatments for larger numbers of lung cancer patients.