Lay summary
Dr Stocker is a fully soft-funded Group Leader at MIMR and leads a research programme that investigates the role of carbohydrates in immunology. Specifically, the research outlined herein concerns the role of 'deleterious' immune cells and cancer prognosis and treatment. Although the immune system has a powerful role in the control of disease, in some instances, immune cells can become 'dysfunctional' and have a negative impact on disease progression. The Sir Charles Hercus Research Fellowship will provide Dr Stocker with the necessary support so that she can focus on this core research niche and explore ways to remove these 'bad' immune cells or convert them to a more beneficial phenotype. This can be achieved through the development of two unique classes of 'immunomodulators'. The first class will switch tumour-promoting M2 macrophages to their tumour-suppressive M1 phenotype, and the second class will target 'deleterious' Type II NKT cells.