Cancer is a life-threatening disease for children. However, survival rates have improved impressively over the last decades due to intensive research. Today more than 70% of children and adolescents suffering from cancer can be successfully treated. The challenge is to treat those children and adolescents without any current treatment options. Better understanding of the disease will lead to novel treatment options or even prevention. In various research projects, medical doctors, life scientists and technical staff are working on the transfer of basic knowledge into clinical application, patient-oriented research as well as development of new therapeutic options and clinical studies to improve our patients‘ life.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) cures a variety of diseases, such as rare genetic disorders or leukemia, but it exposes patients to a severe transient immune deficiency. Refractory viral infections post HSCT such as Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Adenovirus (AdV) infections are life-threatening conditions lacking effective treatment options. Protective T-cell immunity could be restored by adoptive transfer of virus-specific T-cells: Virus-specific T-cells are generated from blood cells of healthy donors and infused into the patients, where they are re-stimulated by the viral infection, expand effectively and induce viral clearance as well as sustained protection. We are working on the translation of advanced T-cell transfer approaches into clinical routine to provide these life-saving treatment options even for highest risk patients.

www.trace-study.de

Overall survival of pediatric B-precursor ALL patients reached 90% in recent years. However, the outcome for refractory or relapsed children remains very poor. Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CD19-CAR) showed significant anti-leukemic activity in relapsed and refractory B-precursor ALL. By genetic engineering of T cells or CAR T-cells we aim to improve T-cells in terms of persistence, exhaustion and functionality. This includes CRISPR/Cas9 mediated knockout as well as overexpression of certain genes to obtain a favorable T-cell phenotype for adoptive therapy.

Leukemia continues to be the most common malignant disease for patients under the age of 18. Chemotherapy cures many patients. However, this therapy has serious side effects and some patients still cannot be cured. Tissue resident lymphocytes are both, friends and foes, providing protection against malignant cells and mediating tumor-protective micromillieus of immune escape. We investigate the immune system of pediatric patients with leukemia leading to the development of new immune therapies for children with malignancies.

A wide array of immunological and genetic techniques (such as CRISPR/Cas) are established to set up new approaches for future immunotherapy.

• T cell engineering to overcome immune dysregulation induced by acute leukemia (CRC TRR 338 LETSimmun)
• TRACE – Adoptive Transfer of multivirus-specific T cells against Adenovirus, Cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr Virus​
• Developing adoptive immunotherapies
• MD Graduate School: MOTI-VATE

• DFG (https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/person/1820827)
• DZIF (https://www.dzif.de/en/developing-adoptive-immunotherapies)
• EU (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/755005)

Please find our recent publications in Pubmed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Feuchtinger+T