In this month's issue of the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, a team of Tulane scientists reports important findings about how certain cells impede the body's ability to fight ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cancer killer of women in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates there are more than 25,000 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed each year.

When a woman has ovarian cancer, some of the cells in her immune system become renegade T cells that no longer fight the cancer. Called regulatory T cells (Tregs), they express specific signals that suppress immunity and allow tumor growth, explains senior author Weiping Zou. In the research project, the team led by Zou and Tyler Curiel transplanted tumor cells taken from ovarian cancer volunteers into mice that lacked a normal immune system, and demonstrated that regulatory T cells disabled human tumor-specific immunity. Their findings suggest a novel treatment approach that they are pursuing in a clinical trial.

Zou is the recipient of the 2004 Presidential Early Career Development Award from Tulane University. Funded by the Wall Fund, the award was established to recognize and honor Tulane scientists and engineers who, while in the early stages of their research careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. This is Zou's third article published in Nature Medicine.