The Pereira Lab secured funding from the Mats Paulsson Foundation

The Mats Paulsson Foundation for Research, Innovation and Societal Development awarded a research grant to the project “Advancing Reactive Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy with Cellular Reprogramming”. Prioritizing scientific quality and innovation potential, the foundation supports research projects that tackle upcoming societal challenges and target market development in the healthcare sector. Owner of Medicon Village, the foundation’s goal is to promote scientific research in medicine and life sciences for the benefit of the Skåne County community.

Adoptive cell therapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) has emerged as a powerful treatment alternative and was recently approved for melanoma. However, current strategies for TIL therapy use resected tissue from patients to expand “bulk” populations, which possess a very low fraction of tumor-reactive TILs. Thus, the efficacy of TIL therapy is limited by unselective TIL expansion.

This project aims to apply direct reprogramming of cancer cells to type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) to selectively expand tumor-reactive T cells. cDC1 reprogramming induces high MHC-I/II, co-stimulatory molecule and proinflammatory cytokine/chemokine expression, allowing antigen presentation, expansion of tumor-reactive T cells, and effective tumor-cell killing. In this project, we will integrate cDC1 reprogramming of tumor cells into TIL expansion protocols to generate tumor-reactive TILs. We will functionally validate expanded tumor-reactive TILs in spheroids, xenografts, and syngeneic mouse models. Then, expanded patient-derived TILs will be profiled to prove tumor antigen-specific expansion and feasibility within a clinical suite.

Our collaborations with Dr. Inge Marie Svane (Herlev Hospital, Denmark), Dr. Axel Hyrenius- Wittsten (Lund University), and Asgard Therapeutics will ensure that we generate a tumor-reactive TIL product that can enable widespread clinical use.  By integrating cDC1 reprogramming into the current cell therapy pipeline, this project significantly contributes to ATMP development, shaping the therapeutic landscape for melanoma and other solid tumors. We want to acknowledge the donation support of the Mats Paulsson Foundation and its contribution to the development of Lund University.