Thorsten Hagemann

Dr Thorsten Hagemann is a Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Cancer and Inflammation at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is investigating how cancer cells can cause inflammation, which protects them from being destroyed by the body's immune system. In particular, his research focuses on pancreatic cancer.

mTOR and the immune system

Dr Hagemann is investigating a molecule called mTOR that is produced by immune cells in tumours. He aims to understand how it is involved in cancer development and to find out how it interacts with immune cells.

Molecules like mTOR enable cancer cells to go unnoticed by the immune system. This allows them to evade destruction by the body's natural defences, letting the cancer develop further. 

Understanding more about how mTOR works could lead to new treatments that 're-educate' the immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells. These drugs could be used alongside chemotherapy in the future to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatment, or even help to prevent cancer developing in the first place.