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Susanna Greer: The best new tool against cancer

Collage Photo of Susanna Greer and Leo Wang

Mar 1, 2025, 15:20

Susanna Greer: The best new tool against cancer

Susanna Greer, Chief Scientific Officer at The V Foundation for Cancer Research and Leading Scientific Strategist and Cancer Researcher and Communicator, posted on LinkedIn:

“The V Foundation grantee Dr. Leo Wang and his team City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center have made a groundbreaking discovery that could reshape how we harness the immune system to fight cancer. With support from the V Foundation, Dr. Wang’s research dives deep into understanding a powerful yet often-overlooked player in cancer treatment: macrophages.

Macrophages are immune cells that act like the body’s cleanup crew, identifying and, well, basically ‘eating’ unwanted invaders, including cancer cells. In tumors, these cells are known as tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). Researchers have long known that macrophages can attack cancer cells, but the question has remained: What helps macrophages keep fighting, especially once they’ve started?

This cool study from Dr. Wang and team revealed that a key cellular pathway called ‘mTOR signaling’ plays a crucial role in sustaining macrophages’ ability to keep eating (or phagocytosing) cancer cells. This discovery is important because while we understood how macrophages start attacking cancer cells, the mystery of how they keep going, and what might cause them to stop, had remained unsolved.

Understanding how macrophages maintain their cancer-fighting activity could open doors to new treatments that supercharge the body’s natural defenses. Dr. Wang’s findings show that the mTOR pathway helps macrophages transition from a resting state to an active, cancer-fighting mode.

This insight has huge therapeutic implications: therapies that enhance mTOR signaling in macrophages could make immune-based cancer treatments more effective, helping patients’ bodies fight back harder and longer against tumors.

For cancer patients, this discovery paves the way for developing treatments that can boost macrophage function, offering a new strategy to support existing therapies like immunotherapy. If we can harness and enhance mTOR signaling in macrophages, it could lead to innovative cancer treatments that improve patient outcomes by strengthening the immune system’s ability to fight back.

Breakthroughs like Dr. Wang’s don’t happen without dedicated research funding. In this case, the V Foundation support helped make it possible to explore this very complex biological question, leading to insights that could one day transform cancer care. This study highlights why investing in cutting-edge science is so vital: it’s how we move closer to new, life-saving treatments and, ultimately, cures.

Supporting cancer research doesn’t just fund experiments, it fuels hope for patients and their families, and it brings us one step closer to a future where cancer is no longer a life-threatening disease.”