Greg Michael Delgoffe, PhD

Recent clinical successes have revealed that the immune system can be successfully harnessed to fight cancer. Various strategies are utilized, including enhancing a patient’s ‘natural’ response to cancer as well as ‘redirecting’ a patient’s immune cells (‘T cells’) to the tumor using genetic engineering. While these T cell therapies have had major success in leukemias, they have not yet shown promise in the treatment of solid tumors.  

T cells require an enormous amount of fuel to perform their tumor-killing functions. However, we have recently shown that in solid tumors, cancer cells evade immune responses in part by depriving the T cell of the ability to generate energy and depleting the local environment of nutrients.  

In this Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy funded research program, we will utilize genetic engineering to metabolically ‘reprogram’ tumor-specific T cells. Using this technology, they will become more fit to fight cancer for an extended period of time. We will test these T cells in animal models and translate these findings into human T cells as well. The goal is to generate super-soldier type T cells, those that can be both redirected to the tumor site, but also bolstered metabolically to support long-term and durable responses.  

This Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy Research Fellow is funded in part by Swim Across America. 

“My priority is not just advancing science, but translating that science into meaningful clinical therapeutics and it’s been fantastic to have the Alliance’s support. The Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy fueled my career trajectory. It came into my life when I was just getting my lab and my research off the ground. It’s an important part of what got me and my research where we are today.”