Dendritic Cell Targeting for Resetting the Immune Balance

We assembled a consortium of academic partners and companies that were previously not interlinked. We envision fruitful long-term collaborations in the fields of immunomonitoring, cellular therapy, and nano delivery systems.

In many diseases, the immune system plays an important role. Worldwide, millions of lives can be saved by immune-modulating curative cancer treatments (over 8 million worldwide annually). Furthermore, hundreds of millions of chronic inflammatory diseases (5 to 7% of the Western society) and patients suffering from allergies (10-30% of the world population) would benefit from a curative immune-modulating treatment approach rather than life-long daily treatments.

In DC4Balance, disease-overarching insight in DC modulating therapeutics was gained. A harmonised immunological toolbox was developed. Unique longitudinal patient samples from previously performed immunotherapy trials by the consortium members in different diseases were analysed. The aligned outcome in all assays confirms the robustness and power of the immunomonitoring toolbox for studying the effect of DC modulating therapies. The toolbox will be available for upcoming trials in the consortium for which sufficient patient material will be available and will allow for further alignment with therapy efficacy.

In addition, we developed nano systems that can modulate and activate dendritic cells. Particulated adjuvants/antigens were used to modulate DC function. Mechanisms are deciphered for reprogramming immune responses in cancer and chronic inflammatory diseases. Novel DC-modulating therapeutics are developed ready to be produced according to good manufacturing guidelines (GMP) for clinical application of a broad range of immune disorders.

Taken together, this project has laid the foundations for curative treatments for immune-mediated diseases. The potential societal and economic impact of this project is therefore huge.