Harnessing Metabolic Pathways for the Treatment of Insulin Resistance-Associated Immune Dysfunction

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Tsai, Sue

• SSHRC NFRF-E awarded 2019: With the requested funding, I will apply my expertise in T cells and metabolism to identify new potential metabolic drugs that can enhance immune function. We hypothesize that a Insulin-Resistance (IR)-related immune and metabolic defect contributes to increased risk of cancer during obesity, and that targeting immune cell metabolism with chemical modulators can improve vaccination-induced protection against cancer. To this end, we propose to carry out drug screening in a novel metabolism-based platform, to identify candidate immune adjuvants capable of boosting anti-tumor immunity when applied in an immunotherapy, with the following aims: I. Delineate the impact of obesity and insulin resistance on T cell-mediated anti-tumor response. II. Identify novel immunotherapeutic agents through metabolic screening. III. Harness cellular metabolic pathways to improve anti-tumor T cell responses.

• Date created

  2018-10-16

• Subjects / Keywords

  • NFRF-E
  • New Frontiers Research Fund-Exploration
  • SSHRC
  • Obesity
  • Insulin Resistance
  • Metabolism
  • Immune Function
  • Immunity
  • Metabolic Defect
  • Cancer
  • Tumor
  • T Cell

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-f9rb-hm79

• License

  ©️Tsai, Sue. All rights reserved other than by permission. This document embargoed to those without UAlberta CCID until 2023.