Ravid Straussman
Weizmann Institute of Science
Host: Thomas Vogl
Programm
The intra-tumor microbiome and its effects on response to therapy
The presence of bacteria in solid human tumors has been documented for over 100 years. Still, it is only in recent years that a more thorough characterization of this low biomass microbiome has been pursued. We have been characterizing the presence of bacteria across many human tumor types and starting to dissect their functions and clinical effects, including the response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy. We found that specific bacteria and bacterial enzymes can increase or decrease the response to immune-checkpoint blockade tehrapy. We have also extended our efforts to characterize the presence of fungi in tumors. We found that fungi are commonly present in human tumors and that specific fungi are correlated to the presence of specific tumor bacteria or to the tumor immune landscape. In this seminar, I will give a short overview of what we know today about the multi-kingdom tumor microbiome landscape and its potential effect on the response to therapy.