ABOUT THE PROJECT

Cancer vaccines can trigger an anti-cancer immune response, but responses in patients are limited by the requirement of a T-cell inflamed tumor. Oncolytic viruses (OV) infect and selectively replicate in tumor cells, thereby inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD), resulting in the release of tumor antigens and the (re-)activation and attraction of effector T cells. In this KWF-Alpe d’HuZes funded project, you will focus on developing a novel in situ cancer vaccination method wherein oncolytic viruses will be armed with multi-specific single domain antibodies to boost DC antigen uptake and cancer-specific T-cell responses.
Would you like to know more about the different phases within the PhD trajectory? You can read more about this on this page.

You will work in a team of young and enthusiastic researchers who have expertise in tumor immunology, immunotherapy, oncolytic viruses and cancer. Research is embedded within the research institutes Cancer Center Amsterdam (CCA) and Amsterdam Immunity and Infection Institute (AI&II).
In this PhD-project, you will generate and characterize multi-specific single domain antibodies (sdAb) to arm OV for subsequent evaluation in cutting edge preclinical and in vivo models.

Your main tasks and responsibilities are:

• characterization of sdAb following immunization of Lama glama;
• generation and characterization of multi-specific sdAb;
• cloning and genetic arming of oncolytic adenoviruses;
• functional evaluation of armed-OV in vitro, ex vivo in 2D and 3D (patient-derived) tumor models;
• in vivo evaluation of armed-OV in a humanized melanoma model.