Dr. Jun Yan, chief of the division of immunotherapy of the Department of Surgery, and leader of the Brown Cancer Center (BCC) program in immuno-oncology, and researchers in the division of immunotherapy have developed a method shown to reduce cancer metastasis in animal models.  The findings were published January 5 in “Nature Immunology.”  The researchers successfully trained immune cells to combat the cancer using whole beta-glucan particles.  Beta glucan is a polysaccharide found in yeast, bacteria, plants and foods.  They discovered that infusing beta-glucan trained immune cells into tumor-bearing mice controlled tumor metastasis, opening a new avenue for cancer immunotherapy.