Mechanisms of Immunogenic Cell Death in Tumour Cells Infected with Oncolytic Viruses

This project is focused on understanding the mechanism of action of an emerging cancer immunotherapy which uses specially designed viruses, termed oncolytic viruses, to selectively target and kill cancer cells whilst generating an anti-tumour immune response. The objective of this project is to characterise the cell death pathway(s) activated by several clinically relevant oncolytic viruses in human tumour cells with the aim of identifying the key molecular mediators.
In addition, this project will aim to assess the impact of the DNA damage response pathway on oncolytic virus killing and on the immunogenicity of tumour cell death upon infection. In order to assess this, cancer cell lines with characterised mutations in key DNA repair proteins are being used. The effect of oncolytic virotherapy in combination with other cancer therapeutics that affect DNA damage responses will also be examined.