Tumor Immunotherapy and Microenvironment (TIME)

The TIME group aims to define innovative strategies to reprogram the tumor immune landscape and switch “cold” into “hot” tumors.

activities

Cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a revolutionary treatment for many aggressive cancers for which conventional therapies have failed. However, this enthusiastic vision has been seriously challenged by clinical data indicating that only a few numbers of patients benefit from durable clinical remissions, while the majority have a short-term benefit or no benefit at all.

The strategic priority of TIME group relies on discovering druggable targets in tumor cells and pathways in the tumor microenvironment that are able to improve the benefit of cancer immunotherapy by reprogramming cold immune desert tumors into hot inflamed immune infiltrated tumors.

Therefore, TIME research activities are at the forefront of translating basic knowledge into clinical application. To fulfill the strategic priority and strengthen the translational aspect of its research activities, TIME group has established collaboration with leading cancer centers in Europe and biotech and pharma companies.

The ultimate aim of the TIME group is to address the unmet clinical needs by providing the proof of concept to set up innovative clinical trials, which take full advantage of the impressive value of cancer immunotherapy.

Bassam
Janji

Projects & clinical trials

Some of the group’s research projects include: 

  • Effect of targeting hypoxia-induced autophagy in the improvement of the anti-tumour immune response in vivo
  • Investigation of the autophagy-dependent mechanism involved in the regulation of tumour cell susceptibility to immune cell-mediated killing under hypoxic stress
  • Study of the temporal dynamic of immune cells infiltrating autophagy competent or defective hypoxic tumours 
  • Improving T-cell and Macrophage Immune checkpoint blockades by combining autophagy inhibitors, COMBATIC (FNR CORE)
  • Improving the cancer immunotherapy by targeting hypoxia (Roche Pharma)
  • Improving cancer immunotherapy based on anti-PD-1 and STING agonists by combining small innovative molecules, SMART COMBO (FNR BRIDGES – Sprint Bioscience)
  • Assessment the impact of selective ALDH1 inhibitors on tumor infiltrating lymphocytes and the therapeutic benefit of Immune checkpoint blockers, TRICKALDH (FNR BRIDGES – Advanced BioDesign)

Featured team members

  • Elisabetta
    Bartolini
    PhD Student
  • Ruize
    Gao
    Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Bassam
    Janji
    Group Leader
  • Akinchan
    Kumar
    Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Margaux
    Poussard
    Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Teresa
    Ramos
    Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Kris
    Van Moer
    Research Engineer
  • Guillaume
    Vogin
    Clinician Scientist

Scientific publications

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