Dr. Guerriero partnered with Dr. Needa Brown from Northeastern University for this grant. They will receive funding from the Department of Defense for the study, “Sustained-Release STING Agonist Implants Activate Antitumor Immunity to Treat Advanced Breast Cancer in Combination with PARPi.”
The major goal of this project is to utilize sustained-release STING agonist implants to activate antitumor immunity to treat advanced breast cancer in combination with PARP inhibitor therapy. To achieve this we will formulate sustained release STING agonist implants to improve tumoral delivery and immunity compared to periodic agonist injections while limiting systemic toxicity, then assess the therapeutic impact of sustained STING activation and PARPi at primary and secondary, metastatic sites for rapid translation to breast cancer patients.
Jennifer Guerriero, PhD
Lead Investigator, Division of Breast Surgery
Breast Oncology Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Harvard Immunology Program, Harvard Medical School
Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Guerriero is a PhD immunologist who runs an independent laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Cancer Center that focuses on developing novel strategies to modulate tumor associated macrophages (TAMs). The Guerriero laboratory works on unraveling the complexity of TAM biology, ontogeny and metabolic regulation, with the goal of developing clinically effective strategies to target TAMs to promote T-cell activation and weaken the immune-suppressive TME to improve immunotherapy response rates. As a faculty member of the Breast Oncology Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), Dr. Guerriero leads and supports translational research to investigate innovated methods to modulate the immune response in breast cancer, as well as to better understand the mechanistic basis for sensitivity and resistance of currently available immunotherapies.
Dr. Guerriero received a BS in biochemistry from Northeastern University while on a division I pole vault scholarship. She received a PhD in molecular and cellular biology and immunology and pathology from Stony Brook University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at DFCI and joined the faculty in 2017 as an instructor, before joining Brigham and Women’s Hospital as an independent investigator in 2020.
Dr. Guerriero currently serves as a director at-large for the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and an AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group Steering Committee member. She is an associate editor for the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC). She is also co-founder of The Myeloid Network, a monthly international seminar series aimed to connect researchers worldwide to promote communication and advancement in the field of myeloid cell biology.