Targeted immunotherapies for hematologic malignancies

Our overall goal is to develop novel targeted immunotherapies for patients with hematologic malignancies. The group develops adoptive T cell therapies with native or engineered receptors and evaluates combinatorial strategies. The objective is to efficiently target tumor cells, mitigate immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment factors, favor tumor-targeted migration and longevity of transferred T cells, control potential toxicities, identify novel personalized targets, and move developments to the clinic.

• To redirect human T specificity to target hematologic malignancies by genetic engineering (chimeric antigen receptors, transgenic T cell receptors, others)
• To develop combinatorial approaches to engineered T cell therapy targeting both the tumor cells and their microenvironment (e.g. engineer tumor-directed migration, resistance to immune inhibitory signals)
• To engineer signaling switches in T cells that revert tumor-associated immune inhibitory signals.
• To assess tumor microenvironment modulation upon adoptive transfer of engineered T cells, including omics and spatial technologies
• To evaluate 3D culture systems to better model the tumor microenvironment in vitro and use them to evaluate transgenic T cell function
• To identify immunogenic tumor neo-antigens in patients with hematologic malignancies and to isolate their neo-antigen specific TCRs for personalized medicine applications.
• We apply principles from immunology, hematology, cancer and systems biology, use gene transfer and editing technologies to engineer T cells, and collaborate with experts in protein engineering, gene editing, proteomics/ peptidomics, immunomonitoring, bioinformatics, bioengineering, clinical hematology and immuno-oncology.