Immune & Cellular Therapies
The carcinogenetic role of the immune system in the cancer micro-environment is increasingly acknowledged. Ongoing research reveals potential and promising targets. Our new Utrecht Innovation Center for Advanced Therapies (ICAT), allows a rapid translation of these research findings into Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) for clinical trials and patient care.
Our immune system is capable of recognizing cells that have become cancerous. Innovations in immune and cellular therapies are capable of priming our immune system to eliminate the cancer cells.
Breakthroughs and impact
As fundamental and translational results are promising, multiple, including first-in-man, clinical studies with more innovative immunotherapeutic agents have been instigated in pediatric, adult and veterinary patients with already confirmed improved outcome for certain solid and hematological malignancies.
Identification of targets for immunotherapy
Together with international partners, scientists of the Princess Máxima Center identified NECTIN2-TIGIT as a novel target for immunotherapeutic treatment of pediatric neuroblastoma, through single cell RNA sequencing of samples from a unique population of patients before and after chemotherapy. The discovery opens opportunities for novel clinical studies.
Clinical impact of blinatumomab for infant KMT2A-rearranged ALL
In an international phase 2 study, Princess Máxima Center scientists assessed the safeness and efficacy of the bispecific T/B cell engager, blinatumomab, in combination with interfant-6 chemotherapy for infants with newly diagnosed KMT2A-rearrangement acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Promising results were obtained related to short-term disease-free survival and number of patients with complete minimal residual disease response. A remarkable low incidence of relapse was found.
yδTcell
γδT cells display potent cytotoxicity towards a large array of haematological and solid tumors, while preserving normal tissues. Such target cell recognition usually does not rely on specific peptide presentation by HLA molecules, rendering them applicable to a broad patient population. At UMC Utrecht, γδT cell receptor (abbreviated TEGs) has been introduced into the conventional αβT cell with exciting preclinical results. The first reports on the clinical studies show this approach is well tolerated. Further studies on novel designs are even more promising.
Model systems in immuno-oncology
Functional interactions between cytotoxic immune cells and their tumor targets are central to anti-cancer immunity. Identifying proteins in these intercellular communication events is essential for next generation immunotherapy drug discovery. Special omics and mass spectrometry-based approaches developed at the UU and CMM-UMCU are applied to quantify protein expression at the cell surface and characterize intercellular communication dynamics between interacting cells. This enables antigen and target discovery for cell therapy through immune cell mediated killing.
CAR-T development
In Utrecht, BEHAV3D has been developed to study the dynamic interactions of immune cells and patient cancer organoids by means of imaging and transcriptomics. Recently, models have been refined to study more complex cancer cell and stroma interactions to identify immune modulatory mechanisms. This allows us to develop new models and tools to accelerate CAR-T cell developments within the national growth fund OncodeAccelerator and NextGen-Hightech.
CAR-T cells with nanotechnology
The great expertise available at UMC Utrecht and the department of Pharmaceutics of the UU on lipid nanoparticles has been central in the development of a private partner fully embedded within Utrecht Science Park: NanoCell Therapeutics. The focus on developing the next generation CAR-T by making use of lipid nanoparticles that carry DNA plasmids and RNA to T cells, upon intravenous administration.
Next generation experts
Our responsibility includes educating and training the next generation of researchers to create a dynamic environment in which innovative science will continue contributing to an ever-improving outcome for our patients.
PhD programmes
Within the Graduate School of Life Sciences offer the following PhD programmes tailored to this goal.
Students can also visit our other PhD programmes or Master's programmes.