A milestone for PRIMA
In addition to the four senior group leaders, one of the grants goes to one of our young scientists, Chloe B. Steen.
This is a strong recognition of our mission to advance precision immunotherapy and develop innovative cancer treatments. These grants will accelerate groundbreaking projects that aim to bring curative solutions closer to patients.
Short project descriptions follows below:
Chloe B. Steen
ECHO: Ecotyping the Cancer Stem Cell Niche of High-Grade Ovarian Cancer
The aim of the project is to uncover how malignant cell states, tumor environments, and the cancer stem cell niche influence disease progression and therapy resistance in ovarian cancer.
June Myklebust
Immunological determinants for response to T cell engagers (IDEA-T)
Bispecific T cell engaging antibodies (BsAbs) are immunotherapies that harness a patient’s own T cells to kill tumor cells. It is still unclear why some patients respond to BsAbs while others do not. Within PRIMA, this project aims to identify which T cell subsets are the main mediators of tumor killing after activation by BsAbs. To address this, we will use samples from an ongoing Nordic phase II study, in which follicular lymphoma patients are treated with the BsAbs Mosunetuzumab. We are biobanking live immune cells from blood and tumor sites collected before and during treatment, and will analyze them with advanced single cell technologies to map the immune responses. These efforts support PRIMA’s mission to understand immune responses in the context of the tumor microenvironment, to design more effective immunotherapies.
Karl-Johan Malmberg
Guiding the Innate Power of Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Therapy
Natural killer (NK) cells are the body’s rapid-response soldiers—immune cells that can recognize and destroy cancer and virus-infected cells without prior training. Yet, their power remains underused in current cancer immunotherapies, largely because they struggle to precisely target tumors and persist long enough in the body to achieve lasting effects. Within PRIMA, this project aims to unlock the full therapeutic potential of NK cells by combining advanced genetic engineering with synthetic biology. We will create Guide-NK, a next-generation platform that improves the precision of NK cell targeting through engineered switch receptors and tailor-made molecular “engagers.” In parallel, Stealth-NK will focus on making NK cells more durable by engineering them to evade immune rejection and maintain activity in hostile tumor environments. Together, these efforts support PRIMA’s overarching mission: to bring precision immunotherapy from concept to cure by designing smarter, longer-lasting, and safer immune cells for cancer treatment.
Jan Terje Andersen
Engineering of a next-generation anti-cancer antibody designs
The use of monoclonal antibodies in cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment. However, many patients with advanced cancer do not respond satisfactory to current strategies. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop more sophisticated antibody-based formats. This project will explore molecular design of innovative cancer targeting antibody modalities with the aim to improve their mode-of-actions, such as immunostimulatory properties and capacity to induce potent effector functions. Engineering of more effective antibody-based strategies is a key focus of PRIMA.
Johanna Olweus
Targeting the roots of multiple myeloma
This project aims to develop novel cell/gene therapies with curative potential for multiple myeloma (MM) patients based on patient T cells that are genetically modified to express therapeutic T-cell receptors (TCRs) directed at novel intracellular targets. We aim to perform preclinical studies to translate a TCR reactive to a novel target into treatment, and discover additional TCRs directed at alternative peptides from the same protein target expressed on additional, frequent HLA alleles. The aim is that we, by discovery of a few TCRs, enable development of TCR T cell therapies that can offer the majority of MM patients new hope. Discovery of therapeutic TCRs is one of the main goals of PRIMA.