Prof. Dr. Chiara F Magnani

Area of Research

Description of Research Interest

My research aims to advance cancer immunotherapy with non-viral engineering of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. CAR T-cell therapy is a personalized treatment in which a patient’s T cells are collected and genetically engineered to express a synthetic receptor, called CAR, that enables tumor recognition and T-cell activation. This approach has revolutionized the treatment of B and plasma cell hematological malignancies, and the field is now moving into solid tumors and autoimmunity. We aim to provide solutions to some key challenges in the field, including cumbersome manufacturing, disease resistance, and the hostile microenvironment.

In terms of technologies, my lab is focused on the development of non-viral T-cell engineering. Specifically, we use Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon gene transfer with mRNA electroporation and CRISPR/Cas technology (including base editing). Additional methods and techniques we use are immunological assays and high-dimensional flow cytometry, transcriptomics including single-cell, and tumor and humanized immunodeficient mouse models.