The Sherene Loi Lab is internationally recognised for combining cancer immunology with genomics to understand why breast cancers differ in immune surveillance, immune evasion, and response to treatment. A major focus of the lab is how the breast immune microenvironment is shaped across the reproductive lifespan, including pregnancy, lactation, and postpartum involution, and how these states may influence breast cancer risk, tumour biology, and therapy response.
A particular emphasis of our work is T cell biology, including CD8 and CD4 T cell differentiation, trafficking, and function within breast tissue and tumours. We study tissue resident memory T cells (TRM) as a form of durable, local immune memory in the breast, and investigate how TRM and related T cell states contribute to immune control of early tumour outgrowth, tumour immune editing, and response or resistance to immunotherapies. We integrate TCR repertoire and clonotype tracking with single cell and spatial profiling to link T cell specificity and state to tumour genotype, antigen presentation, and local suppressive programs.
Our research asks why some patients mount effective anti tumour immune responses while others do not. We study how tumour intrinsic pathways and genomic alterations shape immune phenotypes, including immune inflamed versus immune excluded tumours, and how this intersects with local tissue context in younger and premenopausal women. We use single cell and spatial technologies, TCR sequencing, digital pathology, and functional immunology to map immune cell states and interactions in normal breast and breast cancer, with attention to TRM, exhausted and progenitor exhausted programs, and myeloid driven immune suppression.
The goal is to translate these insights into better patient selection and better therapies. We develop and validate immune biomarkers, and use them to design rational clinical trials and combination strategies that aim to restore or amplify beneficial anti tumour immunity in breast cancer, including triple negative, HER2 positive, and hormone receptor positive disease. We are also interested in prevention oriented immunology, asking whether durable local immune memory in the breast can be harnessed to reduce risk or improve outcomes in higher risk reproductive windows.
The Sherene Loi lab has helped to establish a method to measure immune responses in breast cancer. This method is included in a CME accredited FDA approved course. To learn more about the method visit www.tilsinbreastcancer.org
For any queries (including Student and Post Doc applications) regarding the Loi Lab, please contact