Breast Cancer Immunology Group
Alan Melcher's group looks at ways to activate the immune system to attack breast cancer using therapeutic oncolytic viruses, radiotherapy, targeted drugs and combination strategies.
Research, projects and publications in this group
The agents we prioritise are already in clinical use and offer major potential benefits to further improve the promising field of immunotherapy. We work alongside the Translational Immunology group and collaborate extensively with the Cancer Dynamics group.
Professor Alan Melcher
Group Leader:
Translational Immunotherapy, Breast Cancer Immunology
Professor Melcher is a clinician scientist studying how to activate the immune system to recognise and attack cancer. In particular, he works on oncolytic, anti-cancer viruses, which work mainly as a type of immunotherapy, and is a specialist in melanoma and head and neck cancer.
Researchers in this group
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Professor Alan Melcher's group have written 48 publications
Most recent new publication 10/2011
See all their publicationsOur group works alongside Alan Melcher’s wider Translational Immunology group, but with a breast cancer specific focus, and sits in the Breast Cancer Research Division as part of the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre.
The group is also linked to the ICR/Royal Marsden Centre for Translational Immunotherapy, which Alan Melcher also leads, and provides an infrastructure for immunotherapy research right across the translational spectrum through from pre-clinical modelling to immune analysis of patient samples for all tumour types.
The Breast Cancer Research Group is interested in translational research linking laboratory findings to early clinical application in breast cancer, and has two main areas of focus:
- studying therapeutic anti-cancer (‘oncolytic’) viruses (OV, including in combination with other immunotherapies)
- understanding studying the activation of human T cell responses against tumour-associated antigens.
OV were initially developed as direct cytotoxic agents, to specifically infect, replicate within, and kill cancer cells. However, it has become increasingly clear that OV work more by stimulating an immune response against the tumour — i.e. they are a form of immunotherapy. It has been shown that some OVs can be effective treatment in breast as well as other cancers when combined with other agents, including small molecule drugs and radiotherapy. This team examines the efficacy and immunogenicity of these strategies in breast cancer pre-clinical models, using both human and murine model systems.
The second focus area is on the activation of human anti-tumour T cell responses, focusing on characterising and testing the immunogenicity of specific breast cancer target proteins and peptides in human naïve and recall T cell priming assays. As with the OV work, the key focus is to develop alternative therapeutic vaccination and treatment strategies against key breast cancer targets, using OV or mRNA-based vaccination strategies.
The group also works in close conjunction with the Breast Cancer Now Unit based at King's College London.
Oncolytic virus/drug combination therapy in breast cancer
This project looks to examine the efficacy and immunogenicity of combining agents used currently in the treatment of breast cancer, in particular small molecule inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors, with oncolytic viruses, to enhance activation of an anti-tumour immune response.
Priming T cell responses against tumour-associated antigens in breast cancer
This project focuses on studying the activation of human anti-tumour T cell responses, focusing on characterising and testing the immunogenicity of specific breast cancer target proteins and peptides in human naïve and recall T cell priming assays. It looks to elucidate in detail the functional T cell responses and TCR repertoire of primed cytotoxic T cells, with a view to developing novel anti-cancer therapeutic vaccination strategies.