Irving Lab members

Postdoctoral researcher CONTACT ME

Research interest

I have a long-standing passion for oncology research, with a particular interest for immuno-oncology. In my postdoctoral role, I will focus on bioengineering strategies to improve CAR T-cell homing, persistence, and safety in the context of solid tumors.

Background

I completed my Bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Leeds (UK) during which I undertook a one-year industrial placement at AstraZeneca working on high-throughput oncology co-culture models for drug screening. Following this, I went on to complete my PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research (London, UK), where my research focused on targeting the solid tumor microenvironment with CAR T-cells. As a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr Melita Irving, part of the Hi-TIDe, I continue to work on strategies to improve CAR T-cell targeting of solid tumors.

Research associate CONTACT ME

Research interest

My research interests are in the development of function and safety enhanced ON/OFF-switch CARs as well as the optimization of gene-engineering strategies such as by CRISPR-Cas9 for the clinical translation of tumor-directed T-cell products.

Background

I did my Master’s in Medical Biotechnology in Milan before undertaking a one-year internship at Texas Children’s hospital to learn about CAR-T cell technologies. On returning to Italy, I pursued a PhD in Immunology. I undertook my postdoctoral studies in Switzerland, in genomics and epigenetics, after which I took up my position as Research associate within the Hi-TIDe.

PhD student CONTACT ME

Research interest

In our group, we pursue innovative ways to improve TCR T cell therapy for clinical application. As a PhD student in the Hi-TIDe, my focus will be on improving the safety and efficacy of currently available therapeutic TCR T cell therapy.  

Background

During my studies in Singapore, I became very interested in translational immunology. I pursued my passion for working in T cell immunotherapy at Duke-NUS medical school. During my research at Duke, I worked on developing a new generation of Armored TCR T cells for treating liver transplant patients with recurrent cancer.

Post doc CONTACT ME

Research interest

My research interests center on tumor immunology and synthetic biology strategies to harness the immune system to fight cancer. I am currently working on developing new gene-engineering strategies to enhance T cell immunotherapies for solid cancers. 

Background 

I have been working in the field of CAR T cell immunotherapy since 2014 when I first joined the CAR T cell team at the University College London Cancer Institute, as part of my MSc at UCL. I undertook my PhD at King’s College London developing and validating a novel CAR T cell immunotherapy approach to specifically activate CAR T cells within the TME­­—an approach that can potentially open CAR T cell therapy to previously difficult-to-target solid tumors.  I have been involved in various academia and industry CAR/TCR projects and I am fascinated to see the potential of these living immunotherapies to be used to efficiently treat cancer patients.

Technician CONTACT ME

Research interest

I am interested in the development of targeted therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.

Background

My background is the fields of molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, immunology and animal experimentation. I completed my thesis in the Alzheimer and tauopathies group at the Lille Neuroscience and Cognition Research Centre in France. I subsequently worked in the Neuropathy and neuromodulation laboratory of Pr Nicole Déglon at the CHUV and the group of Dr Olivier Dormond in the Department of visceral Surgery. I joined the Hi-TIDe in 2021.

Technician CONTACT ME

Research interest

I am interested in the design of DNA constructs for in vitro/in vivo experiments as well as in the production of recombinant proteins (cytokines, decoys, mutants).

Background

My background is in molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology. I gained my University Diploma in Technology in Bioengineering from the Université de Créteil (France) in 1998 and worked at the CNRS before joining the Hi-TIDe at the University of Lausanne in 2016.

Technician CONTACT ME

Research interest

I joined the Hi-TIDe in 2021 to work on the development of engineered T cells for cancer immunotherapy.

Background

After completing my Master’s degree in Biological Engineering at the Polytech Clermont-Ferrand (France) in 2015, I joined Pr Jeffrey’s lab at Stanford University as a Research assistant. While at Stanford, I was involved in a collaboration with a start-up company called Vortex Biosciences and worked on validating Vortex CTC isolation technology. Subsequently, from 2017 to 2021, I was employed as a Research engineer and Scientific writer in the field of preclinical studies in immuno-oncology at Transcure Bioservices in France.

Postdoctoral researcher CONTACT ME

Research interest

I am interested in the study of fundamental immunology (especially immune cell physiology) and molecular biology, and to challenge (old) dogmas/paradigms. My research focus includes the exploration of basic chemical/physical properties (e.g. oxygen tensions, pH, redox), cell signalling, metabolism, and gene-engineering approaches linked to optimise immune responses.

Background

I completed my PhD, exploring how cysteine metabolism impacts immune response to transplantation, in 2011 at INSERM (France). I started a postdoc in 2012 at the University of Geneva to decipher how low oxygen fractions found in the tumor microenvironment impacts the anti-tumor CD8+ T-cell response. I joined the Hi-TIDe in 2016 with the aim of delineating how low pH/acidity disturbs the anti-tumor CD8+ T-cell response: the ultimate goal is to improve cancer immunotherapy efficacy by rendering CD8+ T cells resistant to acidity via gene engineering.