Background

Our laboratory is interested in curing children with solid tumors, such as muscle or bone sarcomas. To do this, we devise ways in which to arm the immune system to fight cancer, called immunotherapy. We have found that the environment around these tumors, called the tumor microenvironment, has large effects on how well immunotherapy works. One method to improve immunotherapy is to administer proteins called cytokines to patients. We know from previous work that cytokines work favorably in activating immune cells to kill cancer cells more effectively. However, in solid tumors, we also need to know how these cytokines affect the tumor microenvironment. Our concern is that, although these cytokines can activate immune cells, they may also activate the tumor microenvironment and therefore be of no overall benefit to the patient in terms of fighting their cancer.