Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy - Research at Peter Mac

The Immunotherapy laboratory focuses on preclinical development of novel immune therapies for cancer with the aim to translate the most effective treatments into the clinic.

Research Focus

Anti-cancer gene design.
Testing various gene-modified immune system cells to eradicate cancer in preclinical animal models.
Development of novel combination therapies against cancer.
Translation of basic research discoveries into clinical practice.
Molecular construction of genes for enabling T cells to recognize and respond against cancer cells.
The use of Toll-like receptor agonists and immune agonist antibodies for cancer therapy in mice.

Research Overview

The goal of the Immunotherapy laboratory is to develop effective immunotherapies for cancer. There is considerable power in the many billions of circulating blood cells that comprise the immune system. Indeed, immune system cells protect us from a formidable onslaught of infectious disease throughout our lives. We seek to turn this disease-fighting capacity against cancer cells by using anti-cancer genes to endow immune cells with the ability to recognize and destroy tumour cells.

Studies in the lab can be divided into four main areas:

(1) Anti-cancer gene design, where molecular biology techniques are employed to create the most potent cancer killing molecules.

(2) Cell selection, in which different immune system cells are used including natural killer cells, dendritic cells and several types of T cells.

(3) Combination therapies, where gene-modified immune cells are combined with drugs or vaccines to produce the optimal anti-tumour treatment. Particular cancers being addressed in this section are colon cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer and multiple myeloma.

(4) Clinical translation, in which final preparations of genes and cells are made ready for use in clinical trials.

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