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Dr. Quail’s research program is focused on the role of the tumour microenvironment during cancer progression. She is particularly interested how chronic inflammatory conditions affect the microenvironmental landscape of different organs to alter tissue homeostasis and cancer outcomes. Her team is focused on two central themes:

1. For many types of cancer, metastasis is the primary aspect of progression that is associated with patient mortality. Metastatic progression can be modulated by inflammatory changes in the systemic environment, which can remodel the tissue landscape of distant organs to affect seeding efficiency. One prevalent cause of chronic, systemic inflammation is obesity, which affects ~30% of adults in Canada. As a growing epidemic, obesity now rivals smoking as the leading preventable risk factor for cancer. Dr. Quail’s research team is investigating how chronic inflammation resulting from obesity affects the microenvironmental landscape of common secondary organs (e.g. lung, liver, brain and bone) and how this ultimately impacts cancer metastasis.

2. Unlike most organs, the brain is protected from inflammation by the presence of the blood-brain barrier (i.e. immune privilege). However, in a brain tumor, the integrity of the blood-brain barrier is compromised by the tortuous nature of the vasculature. This results in a large influx of immune cells that are normally absent in the brain microenvironment, which can impact cancer outcomes. Dr. Quail’s research team is investigating how infiltrating immune cells shape the tumor microenvironment and contribute to progression of different types of brain tumors, including gliomas and metastases from different primary sources (e.g. lung cancer).