On Monday 27 June at 11:00, Christina Valbirk Konrad defends her PhD dissertation entitled "RoVER: Redirector of Vaccine-induced Effector Responses for potent and specific killing of cellular targets".

In individuals with progressed cancer or chronic HIV-1 infection, the immune system is often unable to eliminate the disease due to extensive escape mechanisms that allow the cancer or HIV-1-infected cells to hide from immune-mediated elimination. Consequently, this emphasizes the need for innovative immunotherapy strategies to enable effective immune-mediated disease clearance. However, the clinical application of existing immunotherapy strategies is often limited by the requirement for transplantation of vast numbers of genetically modified immune effector cells into the patient. To overcome the limitations of existing immunotherapy strategies, the aim of this PhD project was to develop a novel immunotherapy technology in which a potent response of cytotoxic immune cells is generated in the patient by vaccination. This vaccine-induced immune response is subsequently redirected to eliminate the cancer or HIV-1-infected target cells by our bispecific RoVER (Redirector of Vaccine-induced Effector Responses). This RoVER technology obviates the need for transplantation of genetically modified immune cells by exploiting the patient’s own immune system. Importantly, this technology is highly specific and can be adapted to recognize various cell surface antigens to eliminate a disease target of choice.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in Auditorium G206-142, G206, Entrance G6, Aarhus University Hospital, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, 8200 Aarhus N. Please read the attached press release for more information.

Contact

PhD student Christina Valbirk Konrad

Mail: cvk@clin.au.dk

Phone: (+45) 42221927

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