Heidegger Lab

Research focus

ERC Starting Grant · 2022

Overcoming resistance to immunotherapy: Immunostimulatory tumor-derived extracellular vesicles as multifunctional anticancer agents

Tumor immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) has unprecedented therapeutic potential, but its success is limited to a minority of patients with preexisting antitumor T-cell immunity. For patients with poorly-immunogenic tumors, combinatorial immunotherapies are urgently needed. With a vast and bioactive cargo (proteins, lipids, nucleic acids), extracellular vesicles (EVs) have intrinsic property to regulate complex pathways in distant target cells. Even though they can transfer tumor antigens which potentially activate T cells, tumor-derived EVs (TEX) have mainly been associated with immunosuppressive function. I have recently identified innate immune pathways within tumor…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.