The effect of myeloid-derived suppressor cells on glioblastoma-immune dynamics

Despite improvements in cancer therapies, the current standard of care for glioblastoma (GBM) only confers a 5.1% five-year survival rate. A major reason for this poor prognosis is the brain cancer’s highly complex and immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, thus pointing researchers to novel immunotherapies. This talk seeks to develop a foundational treatment-free ODE model for future extensions to immunotherapy. Two mechanisms of immunosuppression addressed are the PD-1-PD-L1 blockade and the influx of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) into the tumor microenvironment—both of which inhibit T cells leading to rapid tumor progression. Numerical simulations of the GBM-immune dynamics model will be presented along with analysis. There will also be a special discussion of the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) rejection method, which can be used to characterize the parameter space.