Titles and Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Research area
Seeking to improve anti-tumor immune response in metastatic breast cancer.
Impact
Breast cancer cells can travel from the site of initial tumor development to other sites in the body, a process called metastasis. Lymph nodes, often the first site of metastatic spread, are abundant in T cells that can kill cancer cells, but cancer cells have developed several ways to escape death by T cells. To eradicate cancer cells, T cells need access to the tumors, and blood vessels play a crucial role in this process. Tumor growth can compress blood vessels, impairing their ability to transport blood and possibly block T cell access to the tumor. Dr. Jones is working to increase T cell infiltration of tumors and enhance anti-tumor immunity to improve survival rates in patients with advanced metastatic breast cancer.
What’s Next
Dr. Jones has developed models of breast cancer metastasis and has optimized methods to perform long-term imaging of cellular interactions. To investigate whether tumor growth disrupts the ability of blood vessels to support T cell entry into tumors, he and his team will visualize the interactions between cancer cells, blood vessels, and T cells in real time and test whether drugs that lower blood pressure can improve T cell access and reduce tumor burden. In addition, the team will analyze data from breast cancer patients who were treated with anti-hypertensive medications that also function as tumor decompression agents, including treatment history, gene expression data from their tumors, and clinical outcomes. Dr. Jones will examine whether decompression therapies are associated with tumor changes and are linked to better patient outcomes. If successful, these studies could inform the development of new treatment strategies that enhance T cell activity, ultimately improving the effectiveness of immunotherapy and increasing survival in patients with advanced metastatic breast cancer.
Biography
Dennis Jones, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He is a basic research scientist with expertise in vascular biology, cancer biology, and immunology. Dr. Jones earned a BS in Biology from Morehouse College, PhD in Immunobiology from Yale University, and completed postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. His laboratory investigates strategies to enhance anti-cancer T cell infiltration into breast tumors and overcome mechanisms that suppress T cell function within tumors. His laboratory employs both in vitro systems and in vivo mouse models to advance these goals. Dr. Jones has received numerous early career awards, including a National Cancer Institute Moonshot Scholar Award and Cotran Early Career Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology.
