Laboratory of Tumor Biology and Immunotherapy

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About us

The cancer is one of the most common causes of death in the world. Over the last decades, a deep research in oncological field brought new drugs positively influence outcome of patients such as specific molecular inhibitors and immunotherapy. However, in spite of this great progress, many patients still die as a direct result of oncological disease, and thus new biomarkers and therapies are still being sought to improve patient outcomes.

The Laboratory of Tumor Biology and Immunotherapy studies tumor diseases (particularly haematological malignancies) to identify potential biomarkers to improve disease detection, prediction and prognosis and to identify processes and interactions that might help to develop or improve immunotherapy of these diseases.

We are focused on:

  • Development and testing of immunotherapies mainly for haematological malignancies (cellular therapy including CARs)
  • Tumor microenvironment with focus on immune cells and mesenchymal stem cells
  • Single cell analysis of tumor and immune cells in haematological malignancies
  • Liquid biopsies with focus on cell-free RNA in plasma
  • Heterogeneity of tumor cells

 

Our methods:

  • Processing of biological samples (MNCs cryopreservation, RNA/DNA isolation, serum/plasma collection)
  • Expression analysis (qPCR and mass spectrometry)
  • Cloning and gene manipulation
  • Sequencing – Sanger, NGS
  • Immunophenotyping – flow cytometry, immunochemistry
  • Cell culture of cell lines and primary cells

 

Used equipment:

  • NGS (MiSeq, NextSeq)
  • Sanger sequencing (3500 Genetic Analyzer)
  • qPCR (LightCycler 96 System, CFX96 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection System)
  • Flow cytometry (BD FACSAria Fusion)
  • Microscopy (Olympus IX83 with Yokogawa CSU W1 confocal head)
  • Live cell imaging (Incucyte Live-Cell Analysis System)
  • Microarrays (SureScan Microarray Scanner)

 

International collaboration:

  • Prof. Peter Kuhn - USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, Los Angeles, CA
  • Dr. Valentina Caputo - School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, UK
  • Assoc. professor Iros Barozzi - Institute of Cancer Research, Medical University of Vienna, UK
  • Assoc. professor Aleksander Jankowski - Institute of Informatics, University of Warsaw, Poland
  • Dr. Christian Schmidl - LIT - Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy, University Hospital Regensburg, Germany

 

National collaboration:

  • Department of Hematology-oncology, University Hospital Pilsen
  • New Technologies for the Information Society, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen
  • The Czech National Marrow Donor Registry, Pilsen
  • Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Pilsen
  • SOTIO company, Prague

Releated Research themes

Organized summer schools

Contact

Charles University
Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen
Biomedical Center
alej Svobody 1655/76
323 00 Plzen
T: +420 377 593 810
E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Members

  • Dr. Monika Holubová (ResearchGate) - Research Group Leader
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +420 377 104 645
  • Dr. Miroslava Čedíková (ResearchGate) - post-doc researcher (pre-graduate students supervisor, immunotherapy)
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +420 377 593 320
  • Dr. Pavel Ostašov (ResearchGate) - senior researcher (supervisor for data analysis and molecular genetics)
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +420 377 593 845
  • Dr. Pavel Pitule - post-doc researcher (qPCR, alternative splicing)
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Assoc. professor Antonia Rotolo - consultant (supervisor for immunotherapy)
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Jana Skálová, MSc – laboratory assistant (laboratory management, cell culture)
    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 377 593 842

Doctoral students

  • Tereza Dekojová, MD (Years: 4) - ResearchGate
    „I study NK cells and iNKTs in multiple myeloma. I characterize these cells by broad immunophenotyping in patients, monitor them after treatment and compare them with healthy donors. I also evaluate the autologous graft composition and its role in autologous transplantation outcome.“
  • Lenka Hejretová, MD (Years: 5)
    „I focus on cellular immunotherapy of GvHD after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. I am looking for the most effective application and manufacturing protocols of MSC in GVHD treatment. Specifically, I focused on comparing immunomodulatory potential between pooled and single donor MSCs product.Further, I investigate invariant NKT lymphocytes, their reconstitution after aloHSCT and their potential for the production of autologous cell products.“
  • Tomáš Kříž, MD
    „My main field of interest are iNKT cells in context of their immunoreconstitution after hematopoietic stem cell transplant in patients with hematological malignancies and their potential to prevent/cure graft versus host disease. In a broader context I am interested in iNKTs role in hematological malignancies in general and their potential in cancer immunotherapy.
  • Robin Klieber, MSc (Years: 4) - ResearchGate
    „I focus on the research of free circulating long RNAs from the plasma of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas using next-generation sequencing. The aim is to find new markers for the monitoring of tumor behaviour. I am also interested in single-cell transcriptomics and extracellular vesicles from plasma and conditioned culture media.“
  • Diana Macečková, MSc (Years: 4) - ResearchGate
    „My research is concerned with epigenetic changes in acute myeloid leukemia, with special focus to alternative splicing. My work is to monitor changes of splice variants during treatment and to evaluate their potential role in chemoresitance using shRNA. The aim is to improve the knowledge about the mechanisms of chemoresistance and to detect new possible targets for specific treatment.“
  • Alena Machuldová, MSc (Years: 4) - ResearchGate
    „I investigate a relationship between polymorphisms of NK cell receptors (KIRs, NKG2D) and their ligands (MICA, MICB) and HSCT outcome of patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Therefore my topic combines molecular genetics with clinical data and could bring us information potentially used in donor selection in future or help us with a treatment decision.“
  • Eliška Jandová, MSc (Years: 1)
    „My research focuses on the regulation of the expression of immunological targets in hematological malignancies. The main goal is to describe the mechanisms that regulate the expression of selected targets and to test molecules that can alter their expression so that the expression of targets that are inhibited or downregulated by treatment pressure can be restored.“

External workers

  • Assoc. professor Martin Pešta
  • Jiří Polívka, MSc

Contact

Charles University
Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen
Biomedical Center

alej Svobody 1655/76
323 00 Plzeň – Severní Předměstí

T: +420 377 593 810
E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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