Anna-Maria Globig, M.D.

Research

My lab aims to understand the communication between the nervous and immune systems and to identify strategies to therapeutically target this crosstalk to enhance anticancer immunity. Emerging evidence indicates that innervation is a key feature of the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, the spatial organization of nerves within the TME remains poorly understood, largely due to technological limitations that have hindered characterization of their 3D morphology and interactions with surrounding cells. To address this gap, I will integrate advanced neuroscience methodologies with computational approaches, including machine learning, to study tumor immunology. I will map 3D tumor innervation, characterize how it differs from that of adjacent healthy tissue, and learn how it interacts with the immune system in the TME. This work will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms by which nerves mediate suppression of the immune system in the TME of colorectal cancer—knowledge that is critical to overcoming immunotherapy resistance. Notably, many of the implicated pathways are amenable to pharmacologic intervention using existing FDA-approved agents, thereby facilitating rapid translation of these findings into clinical applications.