It's all in their name: Natural Killer cells should kill. And they do: plate NK cells with tumor cells and the cancer doesn't stand a chance. Yet somehow, tumors thrive. And in those tumors, NK cells mysteriously lose their killer instinct.

My lab has spent years hunting for the culprit: Why don't the killers kill?

In this talk, I'll walk through our published work on chronic stimulation and checkpoint receptors in NK cell exhaustion, and I'll share some new directions we're pursuing toward cracking this puzzle.

Michele Ardolino is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Scientist in the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, where he serves as Associate Program Director. He earned his PhD in Immunological Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in David Raulet’s laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, before establishing his own lab in Ottawa in 2016. His research investigates why natural killer cells lose their killing ability in cancer, with a focus on NK cell exhaustion, checkpoint receptors such as PD-1 and LAG3, and how these insights can be harnessed for immunotherapy. He recently expanded his interests to ILC2s hoping to help finding new ways to enhance immunotherapy for Ovarian Cancer.