Immuno Oncology Talks

This episode, the seventh of our “Immuno Oncology Talks”, will be covering “Therapeutic RNA vaccines in cancer immunotherapy”, with our two guests, Professor Karine Breckpot and Professor Kris Thielemans, from the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Therapy, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium. Both experts have a long background within innovative immunotherapy strategies in cancer, and especially within mRNA vaccination. Professor Thielemans and his team has developed the mRNA based TriMix technology, and initiated several clinical trials in this field.

In our sixth episode of “Immuno Oncology Talks”, we will discuss non-viral RNA treatment approaches in cancer immunotherapy with our guest, professor Karine Breckpot from the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium. Professor Breckpot has a strong background within innovative immunotherapy strategies in cancer, and especially with mRNA technologies as a way to target the immune system.

In the current, and fifth episode of the “Immuno Oncology Talks”, we discuss adoptive therapy with engineered T cell receptors, with Professor Reno Debets from the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute in the Netherlands. Professor Debets research aims to explore therapeutic strategies by developing and testing adoptive T cell therapy and understand and intervene with the cross-talk between tumor cells and T cells.

The fourth episode of “Immuno Oncology Talks”, Professor Marjolein van Egmond from the Amsterdam University Medical Center, in the Netherlands, will shed light on neutrophils as effector cells in cancer therapy. Professor Marjolein van Egmond specializes in the innate immune system and is focusing on elucidating the therapeutic potential of neutrophils in cancer, with a specific interest in IgA and bispecific antibodies to activate the neutrophils.

In the third episode of the “Immuno Oncology Talks”, we have had the pleasure to discuss tumor infiltrating lymphocytes for adoptive cell therapy with Professor Inge Marie Svane from the National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy in Denmark. Professor Inge Marie Svane has built up this centre into a leading European translational research centre. Apart from her vast expertise is T-cell based adoptive cell therapy, her research also focuses on other cellular therapies, cancer vaccines, and immune regulation.

In our second episode of the “Immuno Oncology Talks”, Associate Professor Evren Alici, from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, was invited to discuss NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies, accompanied by his colleague Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren. The primary focus of Professor Alici´s research is on novel NK cell-based therapies, and includes generation and testing of genetically engineered NK cells, like chimeric receptor and CAR-NK cells. Associate Professor Alici is also co-director of the NextGenNK Competence Center (https://ki.se/en/research/nextgennk).

The first episode in the “Immuno Oncology Talks” is about the biology of Natural Killer (NK) cells. The interview is conducted with Professor Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden together with his colleague Associate professor Evren Alici. Professor Ljunggren, who has been studying NK cells for more than 30 years, is director of the NextGenNK Competence Center (https://ki.se/en/research/nextgennk), coordinated by Karolinska Institutet, which has the mission to facilitate development of NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies.

Sanofi, MAT-BE-2300118, v1.0, 02/2023.