Exploring the Role of Copper in Inducing an Anticancer Immune Response

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In recent years, cancer immunotherapy has garnered a lot of attention as it has been achieving great success in clinical trials. Immunotherapy improves patient outcomes by harnessing the bodies ability to overcome cancer using the patient's own defence mechanisms. However, not all of these novel vaccines and chemical agents are able to elicit an immune response in all cancer patients In fact in some patients, these therapies have shown to induce an adverse reaction. For this reason, it is important to identify novel methods of improving immune function in all patients with cancers without the risk for toxicity. Recently, CPI discovered that certain metals, specifically copper, could enhance immune system function. CPI has hypothesized that copper can be used in combination with other immune system inducing therapies or even traditional chemotherapeutics help to improve survival in patients with cancers that do not respond to single therapies alone. The objective of this proposal is to define how copper is able to augment the anti-cancer immune response, and then to combine copper with other chemotherapies of interest in order to define the best possible treatment strategies for patients with intractable disease.