Project details

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment of B cell malignancies. In brain cancer, however, success rates of CAR T cell treatment are considerably lower. This is at least partly due to the microenvironment, restricting CAR T cell entry into the tumour.  

To delineate the specific contribution of individual cell types to this process, we employ state-of-the-art imaging technology (using two-photon laser scanning microscopy and light sheet microscopy) to illustrate individual cell behaviour in the brain over time.  

This project will investigate the interactions of CAR T cells, brain tumour cells and their cellular microenvironment in detail. 

Reference 

Mulazzani et al., PNAS 2019 116 (48) 24275-24284 

About our research group

The Jenkins lab is dedicated to using immunotherapy approaches for the treatment of both adult and paediatric brain tumours. We work closely with clinical collaborators to find new immunooncology targets, and then we can rapidly generate novel chimeric antigen receptor T cells.  

We have all the necessary in vitro tools established to evaluate T cell function and immunocompetent in vivo models of brain cancer established to investigate the impacts of our therapies on tumour regression. We are interested in studying the generation, behaviour and efficacy of activated T cells for the purposes of immunotherapy. We also use state of the art microscopy techniques including lattice light sheet confocal and 2-photon microscopy to visualise T cell function in and around brain tumours and an interest in the tumour microenvironment.