Research Group Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy of GI-Tumors

In recent years, immunotherapies are emerging as new treatment strategies for many types of cancer, but the response rates in many solid tumors are still very low. The efficacy of immunotherapy highly depends on an inflamed tumor phenotype with high infiltration of tumor-reactive T cells. Therefore, we are investigating the immune phenotype of GI-tumors as well as therapeutic strategies that have the potential to induce tumor-reactive T cells and improve efficacy of immunotherapies (eg. tumor vaccines). The results of these studies will be used to develop novel (combination) therapies.