Project: Understanding the role of the Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) family in cancer immune surveillance
Barrow group
Many tumours secrete growth factors (GFs) to promote cellular proliferation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, stromal reaction, and angiogenesis through autocrine and paracrine growth factor receptor (GFR) signalling. However, prevailing paradigms of natural killer (NK) cell receptor signalling dictate that ligands which are either shed or secreted from tumour cells bind to activating receptor and suppress NK cell effector functions. We were the first to show that platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-D can bind to the NK cell immunoreceptor, NKp44, to induce NK cell anti-tumour immunity for control of tumour growth (Barrow et al. Cell, 2018). This work resulted in a change in the existing paradigm and shows that NK cells can sense changes in the cellular secretome to evoke anti-tumour immunity. Moreover, the results suggests that other innate receptors may sense secreted GFs to induce immune responses. This project will focus on a combined approach of expressing recombinant PDGF family proteins for biophysical studies and high-throughput screens to identify novel immunoreceptors that interact with the PDGF family members, and engineering chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) that are activated by PDGFs for cancer immunotherapy. The results will have relevance for cancer as well as infectious disease because many viruses encode growth factors that induce proliferative lesions to facilitate viral spread.
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Barrow group
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The Barrow group is interested in innate immune recognition programs, in particular a new immunological recognition strategy termed ‘growth factor surveillance’. Growth factors (GFs) are over-expressed by cancer cells to promote tumour growth. We first showed that the immune system evolved activating receptors to sense aberrant GF expression by cancers. The Barrow group’s goal is to understand how the immune system recognises GF expression by tumours with the ultimate aim of exploiting these pathways for cancer immunotherapy and the development of new cancer immunotherapies.
Barrow group Current Projects
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Understanding the role of the Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) family in cancer immune surveillance
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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Understanding the role of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family in cancer immune surveillance
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
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In silico simulation of the tumour microenvironment to predict cancer patient outcomes and identify novel gene targets for cancer immunotherapy
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science