NewsPress release
Press release: New Hope for Cancer Therapies: Targeted Monitoring may help Improve Tumor Treatment
On December 1, 2017, Dr. Il-Kang Na will be assuming the position of BIH Johanna Quandt Professor for Therapy-Induced Remodeling in Immuno-Oncology at Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
As malignant tumors develop differently in every person, no two cancers are ever the same. Scientists are constantly gaining a better understanding of why this is the case, allowing them to create far more precise and personalized therapies for every patient. But how exactly does the chosen treatment method affect the tumor, the immune system, and the relationship between the two? And how can these therapies be further adapted and improved? Il-Kang Na’s research is dedicated to finding answers to these questions. So far, her work has led her to discover certain immunodeficiencies caused by cancer therapies and to develop innovative ideas for new therapy approaches. Na discovered, for example, that cancer therapies can significantly impact the formation, function, and survival of the body’s own immune cells. She also successfully developed a model that allows her to observe how certain immune cells react during cell therapy.
Na has a clear goal in her position as BIH Johanna Quandt Professor: She wants to establish a monitoring system that provides detailed information about important disease and immune system parameters during treatment. “A patient’s course of therapy is initially determined on the basis of specific tumor and patient characteristics,” says Na. “The chosen therapy is usually only changed if and when clinical or imaging data show that the tumor is growing and spreading despite treatment.” But, she explains, a lot of time can pass before this comes about: “We therefore need to pay far more attention to changes in the tumor, its environment, and the immune system during treatment. This is the only way that we can recognize early on if a patient is not responding to treatment.” These changes are dynamic and hinder the efficacy of both medication and the body’s own immune defenses.
With the help of modern bioanalytical high-throughput technologies, the professor wants to develop a comprehensive tool that can record and monitor molecular and genetic changes at various moments during therapy. This tool would allow cancer treatment to be tailored to the individual patient and thus be significantly improved. Na wants to begin by developing a monitoring system for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma – a cancer that originates from an immune cell. “My long-term goal is to also apply this technique to other treatments and diseases – not just cancer.”
“We are living in an age where new targeted cancer therapies and immunotherapies are progressing at a very fast pace,” says Professor Martin Lohse, spokesperson of the BIH Executive Board and Scientific Directorate, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC). “With her work, Professor Na is ensuring that these therapies can continue to be even more accurately tailored to the personal disease progression of every cancer patient.”
W2-Professorship appointment of Prof. Il-Kang Na by the Dean of the Charité Prof. Dr. Axel Radlach Pries. Photo: Corinna Schellhardt
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