Published: 17 Oct 2014 | Last Updated: 20 Oct 2014 10:07:18

Professor Oliver Garden has been awarded a £121k grant by Petplan Charitable Trust to work on immune privilege in canine B cell lymphoma (BCL).

Professor Garden advises what the project will involve: "This project will determine the cellular and molecular phenotype, pathogenic role and functional interactions of regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells in canine BCL as a prelude to their manipulation in treatments of the future, defining a pan-regulatory signature to act as a therapeutic biomarker and aid to prognostication. Cancer of the lymph nodes is a leading cause of death in dogs. We propose to extend our previous work on canine BCL by defining suppressive cells in the cancerous lymph nodes that block the immune system’s efforts to inhibit or kill the cancer. Knowledge of the impact of these cells on the course of the cancer will not only help us to predict outcome in individual cases, but will also provide new targets for future treatments."