Tyler E. Miller, assistant professor of pathology at the School of Medicine and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, led a study on immune mechanisms behind tumor resistance to immunology. The research team’s results were recently published in Nature.
The research uncovered how certain immune cells within solid tumors, called myeloid cells, adopt programs that enable them to suppress the body’s immune response, thereby hindering the effectiveness of immunotherapies.
By integrating advanced techniques—including single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics and organoid models—the team identified four distinct programs adopted by myeloid cells in the tumor environment. These programs are influenced by factors such as low oxygen levels, specific inflammatory signals, and commonly used medications such as dexamethasone. Importantly, the presence of these programs correlates with patient responses to immunotherapy and overall survival rates for glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor for which the Miller Lab is trying to develop new immunotherapies.
This discovery offers new avenues for enhancing immunotherapy effectiveness by targeting these specific immune cell programs.