Adapting novel Cancer Immunotherapies to evade the Immunosuppressive Tumor Microenvironment more effectively

As cancer is a major global health burden and current therapies are often insufficient and poorly tolerated by patients, there is an urgent need for novel therapies. Cancer Immunotherapies make use of the patients own immune system to fight the cancer and their development has been heavily researched throughout the last decades. Especially cell-based immunotherapies are currently in the spotlight of immunotherapy development. Despite a lot of success in the journey of cancer immunotherapy development, challenges have raised. Among these is the immunosuppressive environment surrounding tumors which decreases immune cell infiltration to the tumor site and reduces their therapeutic efficacy. In my doctoral research project I will investigate and search for new strategies to evade the immunosuppressive effects of the tumor microenvironment and thereby increase immune cell infiltration and effector function. With the usage of cutting edge 3D co-culture models I will investigate novel candidates to reshape the immune response of effector cells in the suppressive tumor microenvironment. The knowledge gained from the 3D co-cultures can then be translated into engineering new T cell-based immunotherapies against cancer.

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Caroline Schwenzel