Dr Zuzanna Urban-Wójciuk from Cancer Immunology group at ICCVS was awarded a Miniatura 6 grant from the National Science Centre (NCN). The aim of the Miniatura programme is to perform a pilot study that will enhance further grant applications. Dr Zuzanna Urban-Wójciuk received 47.520 PLN for a research project entitled: “Optimization of co-culture conditions to maximize TLR9-mediated NK cell activation”.

In this project I’m going to use a short DNA sequence (designed previously by our team based on the genome of Serratia marcescens), which binds Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) in immune cells. We observed that this TLR9 ligand can potentiate cytotoxic activity of NK cells. I would like to optimize NK cell culture conditions to maximize the immunostimulatory effect of the compound. If further studies confirm safety and efficacy of this adjuvant, we will introduce it to anti-cancer therapy.  In the Miniatura project I will use flow cytometry to measure expression level of activation markers and cytokines in cells from healthy blood donors treated with the TLR9 ligand– explains dr Zuzanna Urban-Wójciuk. The ability of NK cells to kill tumor cells and prevent cancer dissemination makes them a promising choice for immunotherapy, which will hopefully be tested in future projects.