Cancer Immunology Project
A comprehensive study of cancer immunity and its application to cancer treatment
Hidetaka Tanno has been the leader of the Cancer Immunology Project since 2021. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2013 from the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he studied ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation under the supervision of Prof. Masayuki Komada. After graduating, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow and focused on the development of new technologies in immunology under the supervision of Prof. George Georgiou at The University of Texas at Austin. During this time, he developed a facile single- cell sequencing technology that can determine T cell receptor (TCR) and antibody sequences at the repertoire level. At TMIMS, he is using this technology to
1) elucidate TCR repertoires in cancer patients and 2) develop new cancer therapeutics.
Backgrounds
T cells play a critical role in adaptive immunity. They express an enormous repertoire of TCRs on their surfaces. Using these TCRs, T cells recognize antigen-HLA complexes presented by pathogenic cells and eliminate them. Therefore, elucidating the interactions between TCRs and antigen-HLA complexes will be useful for developing new therapeutics and preventive vaccines. For example, cancer-specific TCRs have shown promising results in recent clinical trials. However, it is still difficult to find useful antigen-specific TCRs. In our project, we are developing new technology that can identify TCR-antigen-HLA interactions in a high-throughput manner. By employing this technology, we are comprehensively analyzing cancer patients’ TCR-antigen-HLA repertoires to discover cancer-specific TCRs that can be used for T cell therapies. We will also apply this technology to elucidate the mechanisms of virus infections and autoimmune diseases..
Objectives
- Develop a high-throughput antigen-specific TCR discovery technology
- High-throughput screening of cancer-specific TCRs in cancer patients by using the technology
- Functional analysis of the obtained cancer-specific TCRs
Members
Project Leader Hidetaka Tanno
- Mayumi Saeki
- Rikio Yabe
- Masaaki Hashiguchi
- Kazuhisa Aoki