Magnus Essand

Professor at Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology; Research programme: Cancer Immunotherapy; Research group Magnus Essand

Mobile phone:
+46 70 344 95 79
E-mail:
magnus.essand@igp.uu.se
Visiting address:
Dag Hammarskjölds väg 20
751 85 Uppsala
Postal address:
Rudbecklaboratoriet
751 85 UPPSALA

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CV:
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Short presentation

Essand obtained his PhD in 1995 and received four years of postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute. He returned to Sweden as an Associate Professor in Immunology in 2000 and became Professor in Gene Therapy in 2009.

Essand has tutored 13 PhDs and published more than 100 original research articles.

Essand is the sponsor and scientific lead in clinical trials on gene and cell therapy products developed in his laboratory, including CAR-T cells and oncolytic viruses.

Keywords

  • • Cancer immunotherapy • CAR-T cell • Epitope spread • Tumor microenvironment • Oncolytic virus • AAV vectors

Biography

10 Selected Senior Authorship Publications

  1. Barbera S, Schuiling MJA, Sanjaya NA, Pietilä I, Sarén T, Essand M*, Dimberg A*. Trogocytosis of Chimeric Antigen Receptors between T cells is regulated by their transmembrane domains. Science Immunology, 10: eado2054, 2025. ME and AD are shared senior authors. (Impact Factor 17.6)
  2. Martikainen M, Lugano R, Pietilä I, Brosch S, Cabrolier C, Sivaramakrishnam A, Ramachandran M, Yu D, Dimberg A, Essand M. VLDLR mediates Semliki Forest virus neuroinvasion through the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier. Nature Communications, 15:10718, 2024.
  3. Sarén T#, Ramachandran M#, Gammelgård G, Lövgren T, Mirabello C, Björklund ÅK, Wikström K, Hashemi J, Freyhult E, Ahlström H, Amini R-M, Hagberg H, Loskog A, Enblad G*, Essand M*. Single-cell RNA analysis reveals cell-intrinsic functions of CAR-T-cells correlating with response in a phase II study of lymphoma patients. Clinical Cancer Research, 29:4139, 2023.   TS and MR are shared first authors; GE and ME are shared senior authors. (Impact Factor 13.8)
  4. Sarén T, Saronio G, Marti-Torell P, Zhu X, Thelander J, Andersson Y, Hofström C, Nestor M, Dimberg A, Persson H, Ramachandran M, Yu D*, EssandM*. Complementarity-determining region clustering may cause CAR-T cell dysfunction. Nature Communications, 14:4732, 2023. DY and ME are shared senior authors. (Impact Factor 17.7)
  5. Ramachandran M#, Vaccaro A#, van de Walle T#, Georganaki M, Lugano, R, Vemuri, K, Kourougkiaouri D, Vazaios K, Hedlund M, Tsaridou G, Uhrbom L, Pietilä I, Martikainen M, Van Hooren L, Olsson Bontell T, Jakola AS, Yu D, Westermark B, Essand M*, Dimberg A*. Tailoring vascular phenotype through AAV therapy promotes anti-tumor immunity in glioma. Cancer Cell, 41:1134, 2023. ME and AD are shared senior authors. (Impact Factor 50.3).
  6. Jin C#, Ma J#, Ramachandran M, Yu D*, Essand M*. CAR T cells expressing a bacterial virulence factor trigger potent bystander antitumour responses in solid cancers. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 6:830, 2022. DY and ME are shared senior authors (Impact Factor 29.2)
  7. Ma J#, Ramachandran M, # Jin C#, Quijano-Rubio, Martikainen M, Yu D*, Essand M*. Characterization of virus-mediated immunogenic cancer cell death and the consequences for oncolytic virus-based immunotherapy of cancer. Cell Death & Disease 11: 48, 2020. JM, MR and CJ are shared first authors; DY and ME are shared senior authors
  8. Ramachandran M#, Yu D#, Dyczynski M, Baskaran S, Nelander S, Zhang L, Lulla A, Lulla V, Saul S, Dimberg A, Merits A, Leja-Jarblad J, Essand M. Safe and effective treatment of experimental neuroblastoma and glioblastoma using systemically administered triple microRNA-detargeted oncolytic Semliki Forest virus. Clinical Cancer Research, 23: 1519-1530, 2017. MR and DY are shared first authors
  9. Jin C, Fotaki G, Ramachandran M, Nilsson B, Essand M*, Yu D*. Safe engineering of CAR T cells for adoptive cell therapy of cancer using long-term episomal gene transfer. EMBO Molecular Medicine, 8: 702-11, 2016. ME and DY are shared senior authors
  10. Hillerdal V, Nilsson B, Carlsson B, Eriksson F, Essand M. TARP-TCR-engineered T cells specifically kill HLA-A2 positive prostate and breast cancer cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 109:15877-15881, 2012.

Research

Immunotherapy has during the last decades proven to be effective and gained a strong position in clinical oncology. Although tremendous achievements have been made, we have only just begun the work to understand how immune regulatory mechanisms in cancer can be exploited for treatment.

Our research programs aim to understand the mechanisms that make cancer cells escape immune recognition and use this knowledge to develop new and better immunotherapies. We create innovative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, oncolytic viruses and viral vectors and arm them with factors that can increase T cell recruitment and induce potent anti-tumor immune responses. To address antigen heterogeneity within solid tumors, we strive to develop immunotherapy products that can induce epitope spread and activate endogenous tumor antigen-specific cytolytic T cells.

We combine pre-clinical research with translational studies. CAR-T cells and oncolytic viruses developed in the research group are currently being evaluated in clinical trials at Uppsala University Hospital. We are continuously developing more sophisticated gene and cell therapy products, and we anticipate that our novel therapies will enter clinical trials within the coming years.

Magnus Essand

Publications

Recent publications

All publications

Articles in journal

Articles, review/survey

Chapters in book

Manuscripts (preprints)

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