Developing Rational and Cost-Effective Approaches for Cancer Immunotherapy in India

Checkpoint immunotherapy that blocks the inhibitory receptor, programed cell death-1 (PD-1), pathway has revolutionized treatment of many cancers, most importantly lung cancer.

While these therapies have shown promising clinical results in a significant number of cancer patients, some patients progress despite showing favorable responses initially and others show no response to the therapy.

It is therefore important to monitor the patients’ immune responses during treatment to understand why in some cases anti-tumor responses are short lived, and subsequently develop strategies to promote more effective and durable responses.

In this proposal, we will identify predictive biomarkers and characterize novel stemlike immune cell populations that determine clinical responses to PD-1-targeted immunotherapy in lung cancer patients in India.

This is not only essential to optimize treatment efficacy, but given that such therapies are prohibitively expensive in the Indian context, to also develop alternative approaches to treat those with an unfavorable biomarker profile and thus to reduce the cost of care.

Moreover, building on the complementary strengths of the participating institutions and researchers in this proposal we will establish an immune-oncology research program in India for translating immunology-based rational, costeffective and innovative concepts and approaches to the clinic.