Strategies to enhance immune cell activation & cancer cell killing

Abstract

Abigail Pinchbeck, Assistant Editor, BioInsights, speaks to Karine Breckpot, Director, Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), Vrije Universiteit BrusselKarine Breckpot obtained a MSc in Biomedical Sciences in 1998 and a PhD in Medical Sciences in 2004, all at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium). Following a postdoctoral stay at the Division of Infection and Immunity at the University College London (United Kingdom), she became a group leader and Assistant Professor in 2010 at the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), VUB. She became a Tenured Professor in 2014 and Full Professor in 2019 at which point she became director of the research group LMCT. Her research is focused on cancer immunology and immunotherapy, designing novel immunotherapies focused on T cell activation using technologies such as mRNA, lentiviral vectors and antibodies, including camelid single domain antibodies. She was laureate of the Fund for Biotechnology award in 2005, received the Dr Karel-Lodewijk Verleysen award of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine in 2011, the Melanoma Research Alliance young investigator award in 2017 and the BCLAS award in honor of Jean-René Maisin in 2019. She is (co)promotor of 15 defended and 16 ongoing doctoral theses and author on more than 135 Q1 publications.Technologies such as mRNA, lentiviral vectors, and nanobodies are vital tools in the immuno-oncology arsenal. In this article, Karine Breckpot, the director of the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy (LMCT), explains how she applies the latest technology to her work in engineering dendritic cells for immune activation and T cells for cancer cell rejection – and her predictions for 2023 and beyond.