Events
Kliinisen mikrobiologian perjantaisarja
Sini Laakso, dosentti, LT, neurologian erikoislääkäri,neurologian klinikka, HUS
Dissertation: David Micinski
Opponent: Professor Matthew Grubb, King's College London
Dissertation: Christoffer Ericsson
Opponent: professor Kristina Mikkonen, University of Oulu
Special seminar by Associate Professor Josep Piulats
Josep Piulats is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator at the Catalan Insititute of Oncology and Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain. Piulats’s projects are focused on the development of new cellular therapies against uveal melanoma (UM) and other immunologically "cold" tumors.
Dr. Piulats has found memory T cells from peripheral blood recognizing the mutated epitopes of the two typical driver mutations of UM GNAQ and GNA11, in patients with UM. Dr. Piulats aims to characterize the reactive T cell receptors (TCR) against these epitopes, the associated haplotype and minimal peptide bound to them to develop a novel cellular therapies.
Piulats is an active clinician-scientist participating in multiple trials in metastatic melanoma, prostate cancer and other cancer types using immunotherapeutic interventions. His talk on Friday will go over active projects at his institution, including uveal melanoma combinations, TIL isolation from liver metastasis in colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer. Piulats will later serve as the opponent in Santeri Pakola's defence.
Key recent publications:
- Güç, Esra et al. “Tebentafusp, a T cell engager, promotes macrophage reprogramming and in combination with IL-2 overcomes macrophage immunosuppression in cancer.” Nature communications vol. 16,1 2374. 10 Mar. 2025, doi:10.1038/s41467-025-57470-w.
- Morris, Michael J et al. “177Lu-PSMA-617 versus a change of androgen receptor pathway inhibitor therapy for taxane-naive patients with progressive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (PSMAfore): a phase 3, randomised, controlled trial.” Lancet (London, England) vol. 404,10459 (2024): 1227-1239. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01653-2.
- Martin-Liberal, Juan et al. “Clinical protocol phase II study of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes in advanced tumors with alterations in the SWI/SNF complex: the TILTS study.” Future oncology (London, England) vol. 20,32 (2024): 2437-2445. doi:10.1080/14796694.2024.2385287.
- Lorenzo-Sanz, Laura et al. “Cancer cell plasticity defines response to immunotherapy in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.” Nature communications vol. 15,1 5352. 24 Jun. 2024, doi:10.1038/s41467-024-49718-8.
Dissertation: Janne Alakare
Opponent: Docent Teemu Koivistoinen, University of Tampere