Translational Immunology

Therapies that harness the immune system, so-called immunotherapies, are proving transformative to treatment outcomes among cancer patients. Despite this only a handful of patients respond to treatment. There exists no strategy to identify these patients leading to suboptimal treatment decisions and the wasteful application of limited resources. The translational immunology team has the important task of developing biomarkers that identify patients likely to yield benefit from immunotherapy. The targeted application of immunotherapy is important for a variety of reasons that include toxicity associated with treatment as well as the substantial financial burden of modern protein-based therapeutics. Our mission is to provide clinicians with the tools to make informed treatment decisions that benefit patients whilst protecting the limited resources available to health providers such as the NHS. 

To achieve this ambitious goal, we leverage the latest experimental methodologies to build an understanding of the cancer immune landscape. We collaborate closely with other teams in the NBC to harness their respective capabilities, for instance in multi-omics (BBS, NAB), and spatial biology (TBT). We are intent on developing a peripheral biomarker that can be assayed in blood taken from patients at the time of diagnosis and longitudinally during treatment to inform patient response and predict immune adverse events (toxicity). We are involved in several clinical trials with colleagues at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust where we provide multiplex cytokine assays as well as access to emerging experimental platforms. We collaborate closely with CRUK Manchester Institute senior group leader Santiago Zelenay to translate his seminal findings on COX-2 biology to clinical application. We also work closely with industry partners to understand immunotherapy mechanism of action and experimentally test undisclosed compounds.