Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Cellular immunotherapies represent a novel class of treatments that harness engineered living immune cells instead of conventional synthetic drugs and have already shown remarkable clinical success. Their applications continue to expand, improving the prognosis for many diseases.
However, for some cancers—particularly certain pediatric malignancies—outcomes remain poor, and effective immunotherapy options are still lacking.
For example, mortality rates for pediatric bone cancer such as Ewing sarcoma have not significantly improved in the past decade. Another case is T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), which has a worse overall prognosis than B-lineage ALL and cannot be treated with current anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapies.
To address these unmet needs, we aim to develop new cellular immunotherapies for pediatric cancers. Our approach targets both MHC-restricted epitopes and native surface antigens that are broadly expressed by malignant cells but absent from healthy tissues. We employ both T cell receptors (TCRs) and chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to engage these targets.
To enhance safety and manufacturing precision, we use non-viral gene delivery methods such as orthotopic TCR replacement, enabling physiological receptor expression by inserting transgenes into the endogenous TCR locus. The resulting T cell products are evaluated using a range of in vitro and in vivo models and will be primed for eventual translation into clinical trials.
