Improving Hepatocellular Carcinoma Immunotherapy

Chief Investigator

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes 80-90% of all liver cancers and is the third leading cause of cancer-related death globally. There are just a few therapeutic options available for HCC patients. The most promising is immunotherapy, which uses the antibodies atezolizumab, an immune check point inhibitor, and bevacizumab an angiogenic inhibitor, that direct the immune system to kill HCC tumour cells. However, immunotherapy is effective in just 30% of HCC patients and can in some instances promote tumour progression and have adverse effects. The major reason for this is that the HCC immune environment is immunosuppressed in 70% of patients, and the molecular events leading to this are poorly understood. This project will use murine HCC models and atezolizumab and bevacizumab therapeutic equivalents, single cell sequencing and advanced cell biology to decipher how HCC escapes immunotherapy, and hence determine new therapeutic targets to treat immunosuppressed HCC.

31 Jul 2025 - 31 Dec 2026

N/A