Research And Grants

Reprogramming the tumor immune landscape: combined use of NK cells and radiotherapy in high-risk medulloblastoma

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. For children diagnosed with high-risk medulloblastoma, treatment often includes aggressive radiation therapy. Even worse, many children still experience relapse, and current treatments are not enough to save all of them. This project aims to better understand how radiation affects the immune system—specifically, how it changes the crosstalk between  natural killer (NK) cells and cancer cells. NK cells are part of our immune system and can naturally detect and destroy tumor cells. We’ve discovered that radiation changes the surface of medulloblastoma cells in a way that might either help or hinder NK cells from recognizing and killing them. Moreover, we found that maintaining mitochondrial integrity is essential for the survival of irradiated G3 MB cells, and that mitophagy is significantly upregulated as a protective stress response. This mechanism may contribute to immune evasion or, conversely, create a window of vulnerability exploitable by adoptive NK cell therapies. This project has high potential to redefine therapeutic strategies for Group 3 MB by uncovering how RT-induced mitophagy reprograms tumor-immune interactions and identifying combinatorial approaches that enhance NK cell efficacy