Jenny Jiang, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a new NCI grant to develop an innovative integrated platform that will identify T cell receptors to treat cancer.
Jiang has received a new R33 grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will fund the development of an innovative integrated platform that will identify T cell receptors to treat cancer.
T cell receptor-based adoptive cell transfer therapy involves isolating cancer antigen specific T cell receptors, engineering them into patient derived T cells, and reinfusing these T cells back into patients to treat disease. While recent successes have generated excitement in the research community, the lack of an efficient tool for isolating therapeutic T cell receptors has limited this approach.
Jiang’s team will develop an integrated technology to speed up the process of therapeutic T cell receptor identification and validation. The research aims to establish a foundation for a paradigm shift in future cancer immune therapy, as well as make T cell receptor-based adoptive cell transfer therapy applicable to more kinds of cancers and more patients.
The $1.1 million grant will fund the research for the next three years.
