Lung mucosa: pro-tumor vs. anti-tumor playground
Lung cancer is still a major threat, and when we think about treatment, the picture that often comes to mind is of patients looking unhealthy and in agony. Chemotherapy alone, or in combination with radiotherapy and immunotherapy, can work — but it often comes with a heavy cost for the whole body. In my project, I ask a different question: what if we could treat the tumor right where it grows, in the lungs, and spare the rest of the body from so many side effects?
Together with my colleagues in the BG Immune Regulation Lab, we had an idea: why not use mucosal delivery to target the lung directly, using a small nanostructure called a nanoring? Instead of giving treatment through the blood, the nanoring is delivered straight into the airways. This way, the lung itself becomes the place where therapy starts.
But delivery is just the first step. What we really want is to use the nanoring as a kind of in situ vaccine — training the immune system right at the tumor site. Instead of designing therapies around tumor-specific antigens, which are costly and often out of reach, the nanoring helps wake up immune cells locally. In a way, the lung becomes both the battleground and the classroom, teaching the immune system what it should fight.
And this is where the tumor microenvironment matters. The tumor is never alone — it expands by exploiting the neighbors either with cunning or by force. Sometimes this environment sides with the tumor and assists it to expand; other times it helps the body protect itself from the tumor to regain its nostalgic locale with its previous neighbors. My goal is to see which factors really make the difference, and how mucosal nanoring vaccination can shift this balance toward a protective response.
To study this, I built an orthotopic lung cancer model, where tumors grow inside the lung. This allows me to follow the disease and the immune system in the most realistic way possible. Right now, my focus is on timing — finding the best moment to give treatment, because when we act may be just as important as how.
For me, all these pieces connect into one story: using mucosal nanoring delivery to turn the lung into a training ground for the immune system and hopefully point the way to treatments that are more effective, gentler, and easier to access.
Author: Müge Özkan, PhD
NanoBio4Can MSCA Co-Fund Fellow
İzmir Biomedicine and Genome Center (IBG)