Harnessing CCR2+ nonclassical monocytes to combat cancer metastasis

Interviewer: With us today is Dr. Ankit Bharat from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Dr. Bharat recently published a paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation describing an inducible type of non-classical monocytes that can reach and eradicate resistant tumors and metastasis. Dr. Bharat, thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Bharat: Thank you for having me. Interviewer: Can you please start by providing a brief description of your key findings as they are detailed in this paper? Dr. Bharat: Essentially, what we found was that there is a type of monocyte, monocytes are cells that typically circulate in the blood, and there are these classical forms of monocytes, which are present in all of us. But then there is another one that we call the inducible one. These inducible monocytes are very interesting because they can essentially be recruited to the site of cancer or cancer metastasis both within the blood vessels or deep into the tissue. These inducible monocytes, when they're recruited to the sites of metastasis, provide signals to bring in one of the most effective cells in killing cancer called the natural killer cells, and by providing those signals to those natural killer cells that are, again, present in all of us but they somehow need those signals. Once these natural killer cells get to the cancer site they're able to very potently cause the regression of cancer metastasis, and importantly, because there are no known resistance mechanisms that have been acquired by cancer cells