Page 52 - Hormel Institute Annual Report 2021-22

Vivek Verma, PhD
“Immunotherapy has changed the landscape of cancer treatment. However, immune exhaustion and metabolic barriers remains significant hurdles that induce resistance to various immune therapies. Our lab-focus is to define the mechanisms of resistance including metabolic exhaustion and find the targets
that can be used to reverse the therapeutic resistance.”
Vivek Verma
52 | THE HORMEL INSTITUTE // UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Cancer Immunotherapy, Immunology
and Immune Metabolism
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
The overarching goal of the lab is to define the mechanisms that govern the therapeu- tic responses and resistance to immuno-
therapies against cancers. Several factors such as improper immune cell activation, immune
cell exhaustion and metabolic disturbances in the tumor microenvironment are responsible for failed therapy response. Using interventions such as tumor specific vaccines, checkpoint inhibitors and metabolic targeting under in-vivo and in-vitro conditions, we intend to establish the optimum treatment strategies that will lead to effective anti-tumor responses
The research in the lab is focused on enhancing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy has shown significant benefits in cancer patients. However, many patients still do not respond to therapeutics that are primarily due to resistance mechanisms that mitigate the
generation of an appropriate immune response. The major mechanisms of immune resistance include immune cell exhaustion and metabolic insufficiency that render the immune cells ineffective and unresponsive to therapies. The ongoing projects in the lab focus to understand the resistance mechanisms and to develop strategies to overcome the resistance.
To define the mechanisms of immune resistance and methods to reverse
them the lab uses in-vivo models of brain, melanoma, and breast cancer.
Using these models, my lab studies immune suppressive cells such as microglia and macrophages and their impact on the ability of effector cells to elicit anti-tumor response. A better understanding of these interactions will facilitate the development of strategies to counter immune suppression. In one study we found that targeting the immune suppressive