Advanced Immunotherapeutics: the future of health
Immunotherapy is revolutionising healthcare. By harnessing the power of the body’s immune system, scientists are developing new strategies to tackle many diseases with high unmet need, including cancer, neurodegeneration and inflammatory disease. From groundbreaking treatments like CAR-T cell therapy to immune biologics, these therapies are paving the way for more effective, personalised medical care to improve global health.
The Cambridge context: where expertise and excellence drive discovery
The promise of immunotherapy across many chronic diseases is immense, and Cambridge is world-leading in delivering ground-breaking innovation in this field. From the Nobel prize winning research of Sir Gregory Winter, to the development of therapeutic antibody drugs such as Adalimubab and Alemtuzumab, Cambridge continues to be a nexus of scientific discovery and innovation in the immunotherapy field.
Within the School of Biological Sciences, and across the University, researchers are working beyond disciplinary boundaries to:
- Discover new molecular targets involved in cancer, neurodegeneration and inflammatory diseases
- Engineer new types of drug molecules and novel delivery mechanisms to empower the future of immunotherapeutics
- Drive innovation in storage and distribution to create the next generation of globally accessible advanced therapeutics
Our fundamental discovery and collaborative ethos is delivering exciting new scientific findings that are enabling new therapeutic approaches to come to light.
Biological Discoveries to Drug Delivery
Our strengths in biochemistry, immunology, pharmacology, computational modelling and protein engineering are synergising to drive a new discovery pipeline for immunotherapeutics. These biological breakthroughs can rapidly be translated to patient benefit through close links with lived experience partners, colleagues in clinical medicine, industrial collaborators and clinical trials units, which can all be found and accessed here in Cambridge.
Recent Highlights
Discovery of ‘new rules of the immune system’ could improve treatment of inflammatory diseases
Scientists in the School of Biological Sciences have found that regulatory T cells form a single population that moves through the body to repair tissue.
‘Exhausted’ immune cells in healthy women could be target for breast cancer prevention
Researchers in the School have created the world's largest catalogue of human breast cells, which has revealed early cell changes in healthy carriers of BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations.
UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Award
Cambridge researchers have received funding to develop three new antibody platforms with the potential to unlock new therapeutic agents.
Academic Leads
Laura Itzhaki
Pharmacology
Adrian Liston
Pathology
Paul Miller
Pharmacology
Rahul Roychoudhuri
Pathology
Contributing Researchers
Giulia Biffi, CRUK Cambridge Institute
Louise Boyle, Pathology
Mike Chapman, CRUK Cambridge Centre
Betty Chung, Pathology
Melinda Duer, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry
James Edgar, Pathology
Brian Ferguson, Pathology
Andrew Grace, Biochemistry
Tim Halim, CRUK Cambridge Institute
Christoph Hess, CITIID
Florian Hollfelder, Biochemistry
Mark Howarth, Pharmacology
Marko Hyvönen, Biochemistry
Laura Itzhaki, Pharmacology
Alexandre Kabla, Department of Engineering
Walid Khaled, Pharmacology and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
Tuomas Knowles, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry
Heike Laman, Pathology
Adrian Liston, Pathology
Bidesh Mahata, Pathology
Paul Miller, Pharmacology
Klaus Okkenhaug, Pathology
Maike de la Roche, CRUK Cambridge Institute
Marc de la Roche, Biochemistry
Rahul Roychoudhuri, Pathology
Kourosh Saeb-Parsy, Surgery
Pietro Sormanni, Chemistry
James Thaventhiran, MRC Toxicology Unit
Catherine Wilson, Pharmacology
Work with us
We welcome opportunities to collaborate with industry partners, policy makers and academics. If you are interested in working with us, please contact Dr Abi Herrmann, Research Strategy Manager.