Cancer

Immunotherapy has made an incredible impact on treating cancers of the lung, kidney, and skin—but for liver cancer, the treatment has been much less effective. To understand why, Professor Susan Kaech, postdoctoral researcher Siva Karthik Varanasi, and colleagues took a closer look at how the immune system and liver interact. They discovered that certain bile acids in the liver were affecting the activity of cancer-fighting immune cells called T cells. But while many of these bile acids were impairing T cell function, one specific bile acid, called ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), was actually boosting their activity. And when mice were given a UDCA dietary supplement, it was enough to control liver tumor growth. Since UDCA is already available as a generic medication, the researchers are hopeful that it could be incorporated into liver cancer treatments to make immunotherapy more effective for these patients.