Professor Zhiyong Qian’s research team works at the National Key Laboratory on Biological Therapy of West China Hospital. This team has recently found a new strategy for immunotherapy of cancer. And its results have been published in Advanced Science (a journal with an impact factor of 12.441) in a paper entitled Photosensitizer Micelles Together with IDO Inhibitor Enhance Cancer Photothermal Therapy and Immunotherapy.The first author is Jinrong Peng, a post-doctoral reearcher of Professor Zhiyong Qian. And the National Key Laboratory on Biological Therapy of West China Hospital is the first research institute listed on the paper.

Many a research has provided evidence that tumor cells have a lower tolerance level of heat than normal cells. Tumor cells will start to wither and die out when the temperature reaches 43 degree Centigrade. And the temperature must be 48 degrees or higher when normal cells will be damaged. According to the combined photothermal therapy and immunotherapy, “reinvigorating the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is critical for tumor immunotherapy, and phototheamal therapy (PTT) and regulation of tumor cell metabolism are effective strategies for TIL reinvigoration.”

The above research work has received Outstanding Youth Science Foundation funds , Excellent Youth Science Foundation funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. It has also received Sichuan Youth Scientific Innovation funds.