Researcher Database
Prof. Dr. med. Sebastian Kobold
Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik IV LMU Klinikum
Lindwurmstraße 2a
80336 München
Program
Cancer Immunotherapy (CI)
Summary
The Kobold laboratory is focussed on the development of cancer immunotherapies. A major interest being on cellular therapeutics, mainly T cells by means of engineering. We are working on tackling major obstacles to the effectiveness ofcell therapies mainly in solid tumors. These are access of cells to cancer tissue, target recognition and immune suppression. We have active programs on molecules that can be either introduced in or edited out of cells to achieve these goals. Our laboratory is fully equipped to design and conduct in depth analysis of cellular therapeutics up to in vivo models and patient-derived models. Our research is funded through major national and international funding organisations such as the DFG, BMBF, ERC or EU. We have active collaborations with major academic centers on the topic. Together with our partners we aim at bringing our concepts to clinical application.
DKTK Junior Group Leader for Cancer Systems Biology
Single-cell approaches have not only revealed a wide variety of cell states, characterized by cells exhibiting striking differences in their transcriptional profile, but have also illuminated the mechanisms underlying state transitions in health and disease. Cellular plasticity and adaptive state changes have recently emerged as a basis for therapeutic resistance in cancer, and a better understanding of how cell state transitions are regulated is critical to develop therapeutic approaches that can overcome therapy resistance.
Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms driving non-genetic cellular heterogeneity and therapy resistance in malignancy. Using novel single-cell sequencing approaches, we seek to develop new experimental and computational strategies to define altered cell states in both, cancer and immune cells. Our aim is to leverage a data driven strategy combined with single cell genomics and systems biology to address the challenges posed by heterogeneity in cancer, and to develop new strategies to overcome it, with the aim of translating laboratory-based findings into the clinic.