Redox Regulation of Immunological Responses During Cancer Therapy

Using Novel Redox Active Molecule Approaches that Both Enhance Anti-Tumor Immune Responses and Limit Normal Tissue Injury

Project Lead: Jon Houtman

Funding Approved: Fiscal Year 23
Project Status: In Progress
Funded amount: $600,000 over two years

The Redox Regulation and Immunological Responses During Cancer Therapy project is making strides towards its ultimate goal of revolutionizing lung cancer treatment.

The project aims to collect preliminary data and establish new cross-college collaborations to enable the development of a new National Cancer Institute (NCI) P50 SPORE grant or a new NCI P01 program project grant in lung cancer. If successful, the P50 SPORE and/or P01 grant will substantially impact research and discovery at the UI by enhancing its ability to identify novel treatments for lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death.

Activities to date:

Using specific mouse lung tumor models, the project has studied the effect of pharmacological ascorbate on the body's anti-tumor response. These in-depth studies have offered a clearer insight into the complex anti-tumor T cell response
- Findings from these studies are being compiled for a paper describing the work, with a goal to submit in 2025
- A multi-investigator grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health based on the mouse studies is planned for 2026
Designed and synthesized a pioneering superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic
- Continued studies will allow the team to develop critical preliminary data for future grant submissions for two R01 grants and one P01 grant.
Launched a pilot trial, approved by AstraZeneca, in stage 1 non-small cell lung cancer to determine if ascorbate will work well with immunotherapy.
- Initial patient results have been promising and allowed the team to acquire excellent preliminary data for future grant proposals.
Established process and workflow to provide critical preliminary data related to animal studies and clinical trials that will be used for the P01 or P50 proposal
Formed an advisory board consisting of internal and external stakeholders to provide feedback as the project develops a full P01 or P50 proposal for submission

Next Steps:

The project team plans to use data from the human clinical trial and animal studies to develop applications for multiple large grants over the coming years and begin the process for submission of a National Cancer Institutes P01 grant application.