A postgraduate research opportunity at the University of Otago.
Details
- Academic background
- Health Sciences
- Host campus
- Dunedin
- Qualifications
- Postgraduate Diploma, Honours, Master’s
- Department
- Pathology (Dunedin)
- Supervisors
- Dr Kunyu Li, Professor Antony Braithwaite
Overview
Adoptive T-cell therapy (ACT) that treats cancer using patients own T cells is the most advanced personalised cancer treatment and has been showing promising clinical outcome in patients with refractory B-cell lymphoma. However, the application of ACT in solid cancers is far less successful.
Previous studies by Dr. Kunyu Li showed that the addition of the anti-cancer vaccine did not enhance the response rate of ACT, rather abolish ACT mediated anti-tumour response in some tumour-bearing animals. These observations suggest that the addition of the anti-cancer vaccine might alter the balance of immune response at the tumour site and promote tumour resistance.
In this research, we wish to investigate how different ACTT-based approaches might influence the development of tumour-immune microenvironment (TIME) and define factors that responsible for driving acquired resistance to ACT-based approaches.
Students with substantial knowledge in immunology and cancer biology are desired.
