Research // Cancer //


Immune therapy is one of the most exciting and promising areas of clinical cancer research. At the Maurice Wilkins Centre, our investigators have discovered several immune modulating drugs and vaccines that have the potential to help the body's immune system fight cancer.

This is the largest flagship programme ever established by the MWC, being a combination of four previous flagship teams - all of whom now work on the interaction between the immune system and cancer.

The flagship supports the development of novel immunotherapies and cancer vaccines, from initial in vitro testing through to preclinical studies, then clinical trials. Therapeutic modalities under development include self-adjuvanting peptide vaccines, tumour-selective immune activators, inhibitors of immune suppression, and immune cell therapy.

Harnessing the MWC's expertise in tissue and genome analysis, our researchers aim to better understand the microenvironments of human cancers, with particular focus on melanoma, colorectal carcinoma and glioblastoma.This work is identifying new targets for immune therapy as well as helping design new strategies for immune therapy tuned to individual patients.