I am thrilled to finally share my lab's first paper showing that sucralose consumption reduces immunotherapy efficacy in cancer, published NOW in @CD_AACR ! Let's break it down. 1/n https://t.co/B85rLv9HDD

Loved participating!

The November issue of @CD_AACR is now online! The cover features work by @diwakardavar, @OveracreLab, and colleagues providing evidence that sucralose consumption ablates cancer immunotherapy response through microbiome disruption - read that and more: https://t.co/RPYZMI9kYb

Science is not a contest to be won. It’s a collective pursuit of truth that evolves with evidence - not a debate settled by opinion or the loudest voice.

Regulatory T cells, the immune cells at the centre of Monday's Nobel Prize, are showing promise as a treatment for autoimmune diseases, cancer, and even organ transplants https://t.co/rUwTkSaBNr

Cheers to the best cell! #Tregs

Had a great time sharing our work on irAEs and the microbiome at @AACR today! Listening in to a fantastic panel of experts on the evolving needs in this space.

Tylenol, or paracetamol, has been used to treat common pains and fevers since 1893, and is one of the safest drugs around https://t.co/RNMosEDZyM

We have people in power making broad claims around certain drugs and autism that have been continuously disproven. The degree to which those comments can undermine public health, do harm to women who are pregnant, create anxiety for parents who do have children who are autistic –

Extremely honored to receive the @UPMCHillmanCC Emerging Scholar Award this year. Even more excited to see one of my exceptional PhD students, Kelsey Ertwine, win the Director’s Award for her research on the microbiome and Tregs in cancer!

When your trainees start to master techniques and analyses that you don't know how to do... #proudPI

Thanks to @TheScientistLLC for covering our article in @CD_AACR on sucralose impacting immunotherapy! Also, thanks to Jotham Suez for the commentary! Exciting things to come! https://t.co/DzLimxq1u6

ICYMI: Good news! The House rejected the proposed 40% NIH funding cut. The bill released has NIH funded at $48 billion, almost identical to the Senate’s number of $48.7 billion.

(Please RT/like/share) We are hiring for the lab @VersitiResearch! Technologist I/II ads live and capacity for a postdoc. For all those who love tissue-resident immunity! Please feel free to reach out or to recommend a colleague. (Not posting links here to avoid spam)

Check it out!

This work was the ultimate team effort, spearheaded by Kristin Morder MS @itstherealKM , Drew Wilfahrt PhD, and Maddie Nguyen, and in collaboration with so many labs @UPMCHillmanCC and @PittTweet. I am very grateful to both @NIAIDNews and @DamonRunyon for supporting our research.

In the future, we hope to learn more about how artificial sweeteners like sucralose impact the gut microbiome and immune cell function across disease states as well as work with our collaborators to hopefully help more cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy. 8/n

So, how do we fix it? We were able to by either performing an FMT or simply adding arginine supplementation alongside sucralose consumption. This increased arginine levels, boosted T cell function, and increased immunotherapy response. 7/n

...in the tumor. To try to understand why T cells failed in this system, we assessed metabolite levels in the stool, serum, and tumor interstitial fluid and found that arginine was greatly reduced in all compartments following sucralose consumption. 6/n

We took to mouse models to determine the mechanism behind this. Here, we found that sucralose greatly shifted the gut microbiome and microbial function, and that there was an overall increase in gram positive bacteria. This was also associated with reduced T cell function... 5/n

We worked with Dr. Diwakar Davar to assess melanoma and NSCLC patients. Strikingly, sucralose consumption was associated with significantly poorer ORR and PRR in patients receiving immunotherapy! 4/n