Dissecting immune determinants of cancer predisposition and development

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Lay summary

Immunotherapy has dramatically changed the treatment landscape for patients with cancer and requires a greater understanding of the interaction between the immune system and cancer. The study aims to understand the association between genetic alterations in DNA repair genes as well as key genes involved in the immune system and their association with cancer risk. Mutations in DNA repair genes and incidence of a variety of immune related diseases as well as cancer will be assessed and compared to alterations in key immune response genes.

The study will work to identify novel insights regarding the link between germline alterations and cancer risk. These results will improve cancer detection approaches as well as offer potential new treatment approaches for patients at high risk or with cancer.