AML vs T cells, what tilts the balance – and can we tamper the scale to achieve cure?

Dina obtained her PhD in Tumour Immunology, graduating from one of the first cohorts of the Royal Free and University College Medical School MB PhD programme. In the Morris and Stauss lab, she investigated the in vivo development and function of T cells specific for the tumour and leukaemia-associated antigen WT1 and demonstrated their capacity to give rise to a fully functional memory T cell pool in the absence of vaccination.

She then moved from UCL to Imperial College, to focus her postdoctoral training on BM biology, first with a short postdoc on BM mesenchymal stromal cells with Prof.Rankin and subsequently with Prof. Lo Celso for her senior postdoc exploring the interactions between Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and T cells.

In her seminar, she will present her recent work proposing that the dynamic regulation of hierarchical heterogeneity in AML can serve as a tumour immunoevasion mechanism and facilitate disease progression.

Dina’s expertise now bridges the fields of tumour immunology and BM biology in the context of haematological malignancies. In her independent research career, she will establish an interdisciplinary approach spanning murine in vivo models, mathematical modelling and human sample analysis, to better define the therapeutic T cell niche and elucidate how this is remodelled in haematological and solid malignancies.

The overarching aim of this work will be to identify targetable parameters to restore the T cell supportive function of the BM microenvironment to improve T cell immunotherapy outcomes.