Our research
Our mission is to dissect the human T cell repertoire to improve patients’ lives by identifying biomarkers and designing novel immune-based therapies.
In our research, we map human T cell clones targeting tumor and self-antigens to elucidate the rules governing immunodominance, immunological memory, and immune tolerance across different human disease contexts, including cancer. Detailed analysis of patients’ T cell repertoires offers us the opportunity to identify therapeutically relevant T cell receptors (TCRs) and epitopes and to leverage them to design new therapeutic approaches.
We have optimized sensitive target-agnostic screening methods for the high-throughput isolation of antigen-specific T cells recognizing naturally processed peptides from patients (Cassotta et al., Nature Medicine 2019; PMID: 31501610), as well as pipelines for in-depth characterization of their TCR sequences, cognate epitopes, and MHC restriction (Low, …, Sallusto*, Cassotta*, Science 2021; PMID: 34006597).
Learning from nature, we aim to unleash the full potential of the immune system to shape the future of immunotherapy.