The prognostic value of NK cell infiltration, localization and phenotype in high grade serous ovarian carcinoma

Ovarian cancer is known as the silent killer because patients often have the disease for a long time before it is detected, making it hard to treat. At diagnosis treatment is often to surgically remove as much as possible. This has to be followed by chemotherapy and radiation to target any remaining cancer. Unfortunately, the cancer returns in 70% of these patients and fewer than half of these patients live to 5 years after their diagnosis. New treatments called immunotherapies that aim to strengthen or activate a person's immune system are being developed. While immunotherapy is treating some cancers, they haven't had much success in ovarian cancer. To understand why these immunotherapies aren't working we need to understand how the tumour interacts with the immune system. Natural killer (NK) cells are an important component of the immune system that identify and kill cancer cells. We don't yet understand how NK cells are interacting with ovarian tumours and how this impacts response to therapy. My PhD project aims to improve the effects of therapies by answering this question. We will use slides of ovarian cancer tissues that have been removed from patients to look for NK cells in and around the tumour. This is important because it will tell us whether NK cells in the tumour correspond with better or worse outcome for patients. It will be important knowledge that scientists can use when developing future immunotherapies or combining the ones we already have.