Public lecture as part of the search for a Professor in Pathology

Abstract: My research bridges the fields of cancer cell biology and tumor immunology. I aim to mechanistically understand the communication between cancer cell plasticity and the myeloid cell compartment that drives the immunosuppressive polarity of tumors and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy. To achieve this, I will rely on state-of-the-art preclinical mouse models and human cancer samples of clinically relevant scenarios employing innovative spatial analyses. Furthermore, I plan to advance precision immuno-oncology with the aim to better predict a response to ICB therapy. My research program addresses a major challenge we are currently facing in Medical Oncology, which is the lack of mechanistic understanding of the inter-patient variability in response to ICB therapy and the urgent need for validated predictive biomarkers for this type of therapy.