Our new study on reprogramming cancer cells into antigen-presenting dendritic cells (Tumor-APCs) is out at Science Immunology – Filipe Pereira

Bridging direct cell reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy: our new study on reprogramming cancer cells into antigen-presenting dendritic cells (Tumor-APCs) is out at Science Immunology.

Our research aimed to address a hallmark of cancer: immune evasion. Tumor cells downregulate antigen presentation hindering immune recognition. We were driven to find new solutions to restore tumor immunogenicity and prime the immune system to tackle cancer.

In this study we demonstrated cell fate of reprogramming cancer cells into highly immunogenic type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) that present tumor antigens. We showed that reprogramming cancer cells into tumor-APCs restores antigen presentation and stimulates CD8 T cells leading to anti-tumor immunity while reducing tumorigenicity. Exciting potential for developing an off-the-shelf in vivo reprogramming strategy to convert cancer cells to cDC1 within tumors! This strategy represents a new cancer immunotherapy modality to develop in the coming years.

This study was a tour de force of my lab led by Olga Zimmermannova and Gabriela F. with key contributions from Ervin Ascic, Ilia Kurochkin and Inês Caiado in collaboration with Asgard Therapeutics (Fábio Fiúza Rosa and Cristiana Pires), Michal Bassani-Sternberg, CCITdk – National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy, Malin Lindstedt, Lennart Greiff, Stéphanie Hugues and many others. We are grateful to everyone for their valuable contributions!

A big thank you to all the funding agencies for making this research possible! European Research Council (ERC) Cancerfonden Vetenskapsrådet / Swedish Research Council Novo Nordisk Foundation Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) Lund University Horizon EU Swelife Vinnova, Next generation EU Mats Paulsson Foundation and Region Skåne.

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Source: Filipe Pereira/Linkedin