First session of the mini-January series of our researchers recruited in 2024 at Institut Cochin

Delphine Judith, Luca Simula

09 janvier 2025

Séminaire

Infos pratiques

12:00 - 13:00
Salle Rosalind Franklin
Professionnel de recherche
Accès mobilité réduite

Luca Simula (CSS5, Inserm): Targeting metabolism to improve intratumoral CAR T cell motility

The microenvironment of solid tumors limits the motility of infiltrating T cells, preventing them from efficiently eliminating tumor cells. This defective T cell motility is one of the reasons for the failure of current T cell-based cancer therapies. It is therefore urgent to understand the mechanisms of this resistance in order to develop strategies to overcome them. We have recently identified the main metabolic pathways used by T lymphocytes to move through the microenvironment of a solid tumor. This point is important, as the metabolism of CAR T cells could in principle be easily modulated to enhance their intratumoral motility after infusion into a solid cancer patient. Based on our recent findings, our project aims at identifying new metabolic approaches capable of improving the infiltration and intratumoral motility of T cells into human solid tumors, in order to enhance their ability to contact tumor cells for elimination.

 

Delphine Judith (CSS1, Inserm): NanoVesicles: the ins and outs of the immune and virological synapses

Cells naturally communicate by exchanging information through close contacts called "synapses". The immune cell communication is achieved at cell-to-cell contacts called immune synapses (IS). IS are particularly important to promote an adequate host’s response to pathogens and represent important “targets” hijacked by pathogens for their own benefit. How synapses are formed, and function is still largely an open question: A certitude is that vesicular trafficking plays a central role in their assembly and functions. Studies have emphasized the role of nanovesicles as general regulators of vesicular trafficking. In this project, we hypothesize that through their ability to facilitate protein delivery or lipid distribution, nanovesicles are essential for the regulation of cell communication by modulating synapses formation and function. The project proposes, through the study of a specific type of nanovesicles, to understand their role in i) the communication essential for T cell activation and its resulting functional outcomes, ii) identify and characterize the cargoes and lipids associated with those vesicles and iii) investigate whether those vesicles modulate the fate of viral transmission and immune response upon viral infection.