In this episode we interview Dr. Johanna Olweus and Dr. Morten Milek Nielsen from University of Oslo about the use of T cell receptors (TCR’s) as immunotherapy against cancer.

Dr. Olweus’s group has been speadheading identifying TCRs that are specific for minute mutations in cancer cells, that can be used in adoptive T-cell-based therapies. We talk about what the therapy entails, how TCRs are discovered and go through several papers her group has published recently on using TCR-based therapies against leukemia.

The articles discussed are:

-       “Induction of neoantigen-reactive T cells from healthy donors” (link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31101906/)

-       “T cells targeted to TdT kill leukemic lymphoblasts while sparing normal lymphocytes” (Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-01089-x)

-       “A T cell receptor targeting a recurrent driver mutation in FLT3 mediates elimination of primary human acute myeloid leukemia in vivo” (Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-023-00642-8)

-       “A systematic safety pipeline for selection of T-cell receptors to enter clinical use” (Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37607971/)

You can read more about Dr. Olweus research group here: https://www.ous-research.no/olweus/