Development of a Personalised Near Patient (PNP) Allogeneic NK-Cell Immunotherapy (PNP-NKimunnoT) for Platinum Resistant High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Sharon O’Toole

Dr. Sharon O’Toole was awarded with a HRCI-HRB-Joint Funding Scheme research fellowship in Partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research.

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) causes more deaths than other gynaecological cancers. Women diagnosed late with this cancer have a higher chance of the cancer returning and often the treatments stop working for them. New treatments are needed to give patients other options when this happens. Our immune system is designed to kill cancer cells, but in cancer patients, the immune system is weakened. Natural killer (NK) cells are important cancer-killing cells in our immune system. Ovarian cancer patients with lower numbers of NK cells have worse outcomes and tend to not do as well as patients with higher numbers. In addition, the NK cells in ovarian cancer patients do not work as they should, but we believe by better understanding how current treatments affect NK cells, we can turn this weakness into a strength. The weakened immune system can be overcome with treatments called immunotherapies which give the immune system a boost and help it to recognise and kill cancer cells.

This study will examine how NK cells are weakened in patients who do not respond to treatment and assess if this can be detected in a blood test. Secondly, we will examine the chemicals that drive NK cells to move toward the cancer in the body of HGSC patients. Thirdly, we will examine if infusions of healthy NK cells (called NK cell therapies) specially designed to travel to tumours can restore the weakened immune system and boost tumour destruction in HGSC. Overall, we will tailor the NK cell therapy for HGSC patients, making them more likely to move toward the tumour and kill cancer. Overall, this project will develop new NK cell therapies to improve outcomes for specific HGSC patients who do not respond to current therapies.