Project: High intensity focused ultrasound and mRNA nanomedicines: a new strategy to induce and boost anti-tumor immunity
2021-01-01 – 2024-12-31
- Abstract
Cell-based immunotherapies hold great promise for the future treatment of cancer. Among the recent discoveries in cancer immunotherapy is the concept of immunogenic cell death (ICD). When tumor cell death is induced in an immunogenic way, dying tumor cells can be recognized and engulfed by dendritic cells (DCs), resulting in DC-activation and tumor antigen presentation. As such, dying tumor cells can become a cell-based vaccine. This project aims to investigate HIFU-induced cell death modalities to further maximize the ICD-inducing potential of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), a non-invasive and clinically relevant tumor ablation strategy that uses ultrasound waves to locally destroy tumor tissue. Following preliminary experiments, showing HIFU-induced ICD, we want to further tweak the HIFU-parameters to obtain an optimized protocol for immunogenic tumor treatment. In synergy with this, we aim to boost the induced immune responses by the local delivery of immune checkpoint inhibiting nanobodies by making use of clinically relevant mRNA nanomedicines that passively target inflammatory monocytes after systemic injection, which results in high mRNA expression rates at inflamed areas. As these immune cells are the major source of immune suppressive cell types in the tumor, they are ideal targets for tumor modulation, more specific for tackling adaptive resistance mechanisms.
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- Journal Article
- A1
- open access
CX3CL1 release during immunogenic apoptosis is associated with enhanced anti-tumour immunity
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Nanomedicine to aid immunogenic cell death (ICD)-based anticancer therapy
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Immunogenicity of ferroptosis in cancer : a matter of context?
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Laser-induced vapor nanobubbles for B16-F10 melanoma cell killing and intracellular delivery of chemotherapeutics
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Peripheral blood lymphocytes differ in DNA damage response after exposure to X-rays with different physical properties
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- Journal Article
- A1
- open access
Transport by circulating myeloid cells drives liposomal accumulation in inflamed synovium
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- Journal Article
- A1
- open access
Mechanobiology of ferroptotic cancer cells as a novel 'eat-me' signal : regulating efferocytosis through layer-by-layer coating
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- Miscellaneous
- open access
Ferroptosis : friend or foe in cancer immunotherapy?
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- Journal Article
- A1
- open access
Perillaldehyde is a new ferroptosis inducer with a relevant clinical potential for acute myeloid leukemia therapy
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- Journal Article
- A1
- open access
Severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with high numbers of alveolar mast cells and their degranulation