I have a background within the field of Dendritic Cell research, understanding the role of different subsets in various compartments, at steady state as well as in diseases such as allergy and cancer. Since January 2017 I am affiliated to CREATE Health Translational Cancer Center.

The aim of my research is to identify ways to modify tumor-infiltrating immune cells, which would allow these cells to kick-start an adequate immune response against the tumor.

Research within the field of immuno-oncology has achieved remarkable success in recent years. The so called checkpoint inhibitors targeting PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 have reached the clinics and shown ability to cure cancer patients that do not respond to other types of treatments. These drugs are able to turn off brakes of the immune cells, which the tumour cells can activate to escape from immune eradication. However, only a subset of patients respond to treatment with current checkpoint inhibitors and novel interventions to stimulate an adequate immune response against tumour cells are warranted.

We investigate immune cells in cancer diseases such Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, colon cancer and bladder cancer, in order to identify novel targets that can be used to modify the anti-tumor immune response activity. Immune cells of interest include e.g. various types of T-cells. Cytotoxic T-cells have the ability to kill tumour cells and molecules that stimulate their activity could thus be potential drug targets. In contrast, regulatory T-cells suppress the function of cytotoxic T-cells as well as other immune cells, and targets that can inhibit the activity of regulatory T-cells are therefore of interest for drug development. Depending on sample sizes and project focus, we furthermore investigate tumour-infiltrating Dendritic Cells, as they are key regulators of T-cell activity. Additionally, we want to investigate possibilities to combine immunotherapeutic drugs with radiation.

The research is part of CREATE Health, directed by Prof Carl Borrebaeck, and is based on a collaboration with Prof. George Coukos, director of the Swiss Cancer Center, in Lausanne. Other collaborators include Prof. Thoas Fioretos (Division of Clinical Genetics, Lund University), Prof. Malin Lindstedt (Department of Immunotechnology, Lund University), Prof. Mattias Höglund and Fredrik Liedberg, MD, PhD (Department of Clinical Sciences Lund), and Alligator Biosciences AB.