Award or Grant: SPORE in Prostate Cancer Developmental Research Program Award
Local radiotherapy has been recognized as a powerful inducer of acute inflammation and immunogenic cell death. Seminal work implicating T cells in the response to local radiotherapy (RT) was reported years ago. But it was only recently that mechanisms conveying immunogenicity of irradiated tumor cells have been uncovered, providing an explanation for the radiation-induced abscopal effect. Despite its potent immuno-stimulatory properties, radiotherapy as a standalone intervention fails to mount a reliably effective anti-tumor immune response, presumably due to the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. The goal of this work is to investigate the effect of radiation quality, including high-linear energy transfer (LET) alpha radiation delivered by targeted radionuclides, on the immune response and immune-mediated abscopal effect.