Projects

Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) has demonstrated dramatic therapeutic benefit in hematologic cancers. However, the identification and generation of cancer-specific T cells is laborious, the expansion rates and functionality of these T cell products are limited, and on-target and off-target side effects can carry substantial morbidity.

Weak Th1 immune responses commonly result from therapeutic cancer vaccines, suggesting improved systems are needed to obtain robust effective clinical responses. One key feature of vaccines is the antigen, and patient-specific tumor neoantigens have led to clinical trials demonstrating that strong antigen-specific immune responses can be generated via vaccination with peptide neoantigens, although these have been consistently noted to be primarily CD4+ rather than CD8+ T cell responses.

Deficiency of T-cell number and disorder of function result from hematopoietic stem cell therapy (HSCT), chemotherapy, and aging. The timely regeneration of T-cells and the simultaneous balanced reconstitution of the naïve helper and effector T-cell subsets, along with the restoration of the T-cell repertoire remains a significant unmet clinical need in a number of other