T cell expert Dr Daniel Utzschneider awarded Leukemia Research Foundation grant

Portrait of Dr Daniel Utzschneider from the Doherty Institute and microscopy image of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) blood smear
Dr Daniel Utzschneider, and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) blood smear under light microscopy.

Dr Daniel Utzschneider, an NHMRC Investigator Fellow and Laboratory Head in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), has been awarded an Investigator Research Grant from the Leukemia Research Foundation (US) for his project “Identifying and targeting regulators of T cell exhaustion to promote leukemia control”.

Despite major advancements in the treatment of many types of cancer, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), the most common type of leukemia in the Western world, is still considered incurable. Indeed, existing immunotherapies do not effectively treat CLL, underscoring the urgent need to find new treatments to improve health outcomes for CLL patients.

Dr Utzschneider’s research focuses on CD8+ T cell differentiation in chronic infection and cancer - a phenomenon most widely known as T cell exhaustion.

With this grant from the Leukemia Research Foundation, he aims to find the "kryptonite" that exhausts and hinders T cells from doing their job effectively, and then target it to restore the full potential of T cells in fighting cancer, especially blood cancers which do not respond to existing T cell-targeting immunotherapies.

“Our team will use a state-of-the-art genome sequencing technology, called CRISPR/Cas9, to identify the factors that limit the function of T cells and impact their response to cancer. Once characterised, these important factors could be used as targets for treatment that boost leukemia-specific T cell responses,” said Dr Utzschneider.

“This work will significantly expand our understanding of T cell immunity and may well lay the foundation for the development of new immunotherapies – that can be used alone or in combination with existing treatments – to improve clinical health outcomes for blood cancer patients.”

The Leukemia Research Foundation’s mission is to cure leukemia by funding innovative research, and to support patients and families.