Fuelling cancer progression through the myeloid compartment

Dr. Daniela Quail is an Assistant Professor at the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute and the Department of Physiology at McGill University. Her lab studies intersectional factors that underlie cancer disparities and anti-tumor immunity, including diet-induced obesity. Epidemiological studies have shown that obesity is strongly associated with elevated cancer incidence and mortality across various tumour types. This connection is, in part, driven by obesity-associated inflammation which contributes to cancer metastasis. High-parameter immune-profiling has shown that obesity underlies a preferential expansion of pro-metastatic myeloid populations at the expense of the lymphoid compartment. This bias is primarily driven by elevated production of neutrophils and inflammatory monocytes. Dr. Quail’s presentation will focus on the regulation of these immunological abnormalities at the level of bone marrow, where progenitor cell differentiation trajectories become skewed in response to weight gain. These developmental alterations enable persistent innate effector status and support tumour progression across various cancer models. How these changes can be targeted through chronotherapies that integrate the circadian lifecycle of these myeloid populations will also be discussed.