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School of the Biological Sciences

Conceptual illustration of target cell therapy

 

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

#Research

Discovery of ‘new rules of the immune system’ could improve treatment of inflammatory diseases

Scientists in the School of Biological Sciences have discovered that a type of white blood cell - called regulatory T cell - exists as a single large population of cells that constantly move throughout the body looking for, and repairing, damaged tissue.

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#Research

‘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. Immune cells in breast tissue of healthy women carrying gene mutations show signs of 'exhaustion', reducing their ability to attack cancerous breast cells.

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#Funding

UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Award

Cambridge researchers have received funding to develop three new antibody platforms with the potential to unlock new therapeutic agents. The 'MAST, modular activator and silencer therapeutics' project brings together an interdisciplinary teams of scientists with experience in artificial intelligence, structural biology, protein evolution and drug screening.

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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.