Magnus Essand – Cancer immunotherapy

We develop novel CAR-T cells, oncolytic viruses and viral vectors, which induce immunity and reshape the tumor microenvironment to improve cancer immunotherapy.

Hand holding a petri dish

Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt

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.

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