Ludwig Cancer Research

📣 OPEN POSITION 📣 please share with your network! 👩⚕️ 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 in Computational Biology applied to T cell Engineering 📅 Start Date: 01.01.2025 📍 Location: Agora, Lausanne and Biopôle, Epalinges, CH 💼 Employment: Full-time (100%) Join the The Systems T-cell Engineering Lab led by Pr George Coukos and Dr. Jesus Corria-Osorio at FBM UNIL - Faculté de biologie et de médecine de l'Université de Lausanne's Department of Oncology Ludwig Cancer Research ▶ more details 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 https://lnkd.in/eXpzW4AY

Congratulations to Ludwig Harvard University’s Marcia Haigis, David Pellman and Ludwig Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Matthew Vander Heiden on their election to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM). https://bit.ly/4ffZpEk

Researchers led by Ludwig University of Lausanne’s Melita Irving & Greta Maria Paola Giordano Attianese have developed chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR)-T cells for cancer immunotherapy (named iON and iONØ-CARs) that can be switched on to varying degrees of intensity & then switched off on demand with existing drugs. https://bit.ly/3YweSL6

Our congratulations to Ludwig University of Lausanne Director George Coukos on his election to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. In naming Coukos to its membership, the NAM cited Coukos for his landmark discovery of “the correlation between T-cell infiltration and favorable prognosis in ovarian cancer, an observation later generalized to all human tumors,” and his major contributions to cancer immunotherapy. This prestigious academy, which recognizes and celebrates the contributions of outstanding researchers, includes several Ludwig members. https://bit.ly/4dQcD9X

I’m really happy to happy to share a new paper published in Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer today that I co-authored with Silvia Panetti. This research was done with former colleagues at the Ludwig Cancer Research Institute, in the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine whilst working under the supervision of Carol Leung and Benoît Van den Eynde. In this paper we identify for the first time a CD8+ T cell epitope of the murine tumour antigen P1A in mice of the H-2b genetic background, such as the widely used C57BL/6 laboratory strain. We also mapped the epitope’s MHC restriction, cloned the sequence of its cognate T cell receptor and showed that CTL responses specific for this epitope can mediate effective anti-tumour immunity. P1A was one of the first discovered tumour rejection antigens and is the best equivalent in mice of human MAGE-type antigens. As such it has been invaluable as a model to investigate tumour immunology and for pre-clinical development of cancer immunotherapies. Previously the only known epitopes were in H-2d background mice, strains such as DBA/2 and BALB/c. Given the wealth of genetically modified mouse strains and tumour models that exist in the H-2b genetic background, we hope that this will prove a useful tool to other researchers for further immunological study of MAGE-antigen specific CTL responses and aid in developing new effective cancer immunotherapies. Check it out and read more here: https://lnkd.in/ez4HzRrU Thanks to everyone involved for their invaluable contributions to this study.

📣 OPEN POSITIONS 📣 please share with your network! 👩⚕️ 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 and 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐜 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧  📅 Start Date: to be discussed 📍 Location: Epalinges 💼 Employment: Full-time (100%) Join the 𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 group led by Dr Nicola Vannini at FBM UNIL - Faculté de biologie et de médecine de l'Université de Lausanne's Department of Oncology Ludwig Cancer Research ▶ more details 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 https://lnkd.in/e-6JP_8b ▶ more details 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐜 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 https://lnkd.in/eXzMimr5

Scientists led by Ludwig University of Lausanne's Florian Huber & Michal Bassani-Sternberg report NeoDisc, a computational pipeline that integrates molecular and genetic analyses of tumors and specific molecular targets of T cells and harnesses artificial intelligence algorithms to use its output to design personalized cancer vaccines. The design, validation and comparative assessment of this computational suite are detailed in an open access paper in the current issue of Nature Biotechnology. https://bit.ly/4eFqe59

A study led by Ludwig University of Oxford Leadership Fellow Marketa Tomkova, postdoc Michael McClellan, Assistant Member Benjamin Schuster-Böckler and Associate Investigator Skirmantas Kriaucionis has punctured a longstanding assumption about the source of the most common type of DNA mutation seen in the genome—one that contributes to many genetic diseases, including cancer. Its findings and methods have implications not only for basic cancer biology but also for such things as assessments of carcinogenic risk associated with environmental factors and our understanding of the emergence of drug resistance during cancer therapy. https://bit.ly/3Y4bDsZ

Researchers led by Ludwig Harvard University's Karen Cichowski have identified in preclinical studies a two-drug combination that has potential as a treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, by far the most dangerous subtype of this malignancy. The treatment—a combination of EZH2 and AKT inhibitors—kills cancer cells by hijacking naturally occurring signals that eliminate certain breast cells after the cessation of lactation. https://bit.ly/3ZWFRQW

A team led by Ludwig University of Oxford's Chunxiao Song has developed a method, 2-bromoacrylamide-assisted cyclization sequencing (BACS), for the quantitative sequencing of pseudouridine--whose biological function is unknown due to the lack of sufficiently sensitive methods for its detection. Song and his colleagues also applied it to detect all pseudouridine sites in human ribosomal RNA, make the first quantitative pseudouridine map of human small nucleolar RNA and transfer RNA, identify the sequence motifs and targets of three enzymes that generate the modification and identify an abundant pseudouridine site in Epstein–Barr virus-encoded small RNA EBER2. https://lnkd.in/eUWtx4tK