Cutting-edge cancer projects win funding

Six new cancer research projects have launched at the University of Auckland, thanks to $360,000 from the Li Liangren Family Trust.

The University selected six projects to receive $60,000 grants.

Professor Andrew Shelling says the projects were chosen because of their potential to boost survival rates and lift the quality of life for people with cancer.

“This research enters cutting-edge territory, where we hope it will carve out new understandings of cancer that improve patient survival.

“Sadly, Māori have far higher cancer rates and poorer outcomes at the moment, so many of these projects aim to close that equity gap for Māori,” says Shelling.

After being diagnosed with lung cancer, businessman Li Liangren decided to donate $10 million for cancer research at the University in 2015, says Department of Cancer Sciences Head Ben Lawrence.

“The University continues to work closely with Li’s family to realise his vision of gaining new knowledge that will help us prevent cancer and improve treatment,” says Lawrence.

Could something good come from Covid 19?

Combining the Covid-19 vaccination with certain cancer drugs appears to significantly increase survival rates for patients with melanoma and lung cancer, says Professor John Fraser.

The mRNA molecules in the Covid vaccine are thought to sensitise the patient’s immune system, so it can better recognise tumours, he says.

Fraser is launching a study analysing outcomes for melanoma patients who received immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer and also had the Covid vaccine between August 2021 and March 2022.

If the results stack up, the study could lead to a larger clinical study testing the effects of combining the Covid vaccine and immune checkpoint inhibitors on survival rates for lung cancer.

What drives HPV to cause cancer?

Dr Augusto Simoes-Barbosa is investigating cervical cancer caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).

His project focuses on whether an unhealthy microbiome - the community of microorganisms that live on and in our bodies – might drive HPV to persist and trigger cancer.

“HPV vaccination and screening have reduced cervical cancer rates, but cancers caused by HPV are still a significant problem in New Zealand.

“Māori and Pacific women experience the highest rates of cervical cancer and the poorest outcomes,” says Simoes-Barbosa.

He hopes the research will help identify new ways to assess cervical cancer risk and will pave the way to new prevention options.

“In the future, this work could support microbiome-informed approaches to reduce the risk of cancer developing and improve outcomes,” he says.  

Doubling the fight against breast cancer

Safer, more effective treatments for breast cancer are urgently needed, say Professor Zimei Wu, Dr Patrick Pan and Dr Emma Nolan.

The trio are investigating a new type of immunotherapy that works by helping the body’s own immune system recognise and attack breast cancer.

“Cancer cells often use a ‘don’t eat me’ signal to hide from the immune system.

“We aim to switch off this signal using a small piece of RNA delivered directly into the tumour by tiny particles called lipid nanoparticles,” says Wu.

They will combine the immunotherapy with a special form of chemotherapy that not only kills cancer cells, but sends out ‘danger signals’ that alert the immune system, Wu says.

Nolan says the team hopes to create a chemoimmunotherapeutic treatment that is more powerful than either therapy alone.

“If successful, this approach could lead to therapies with less side effects that work better at eradicating breast cancer and stopping it coming back,” says Nolan.

Pan says many patients respond well to currently available treatments, only to see the cancer resurface.

“Recurring breast cancer is the main cause of breast-cancer related deaths, so we want to help turn that around,” says Pan.

Stopping melanoma spreading to the brain

Most brain cancers don’t start in the brain – they originate in other parts of the body, says Dr Akshata Anchan.

Melanomas, lung cancer and breast cancer have a strong tendency to spread into the brain, where the cancer becomes particularly deadly, she says.

Anchan is investigating whether cancer cells secrete byproducts that break down the protective barriers that typically stop pathogens entering the brain through the bloodstream.

“The goal is to identify and block this mechanism to prevent cancer cells from entering the brain in the first place,” she says.

Turning a wound into a weapon against cancer

Dr Rachael Zemek is focusing on a bold idea: that the body's own wound-healing response could be harnessed to fight cancer.

“Our research has shown that surgery to remove cancer actually changes the tumour environment, recruiting immune cells to the right spot and making the remaining cancer cells more vulnerable,” Zemek says.

In laboratory models, cancer eradication rates can be as low as 10 percent when immunotherapy is given after surgery, but this increases to more than 70 percent when surgery and immunotherapy are provided at the same time.

Working with breast cancer researcher Dr Emma Nolan, the team aims to develop laboratory models that capture what surgery does to cancer.

Zemek will collaborate with Dr Inken Kelch to measure how surgery alters the immune response, including in lymph nodes and in cancers that have spread from other parts of the body.

Next, Zemek will test new treatments on the lab models. With Dr Yue Wang, she will deliver a new growth hormone antagonist directly into a surgical wound to see if this stops cancer growing back.

A rapid-fire approach to cancer treatment

Dr Daniel Verdon is working on a technique to rapidly identify the best targets to fight cancer through immunotherapy.

The success of immunotherapy depends on growing immune cells that can recognise specific targets on tumour cells. The targets are different in each patient, so immunotherapies must be custom-made for each patient, says Verdon.

“By analysing lung cancer samples, we hope to develop a technique that can rapidly identify the most promising targets within an individual tumour.

“The faster the better, because patients urgently need treatments that will start to fight back against aggressive cancers,” says Verdon, who is working with Dr Saem Park, Dr Alicia Didsbury and Dr Jennifer Eom on the project.

Current methods for identifying the unique targets for immunotherapies are slow and too expensive for many patients to afford, he says.

The project will help build a foundation for cancer immunotherapy research, paving the way for better treatments for cancer patients in New Zealand, Verdon says.