Faculty Seminar Michele De Palma: Engineering dendritic cells for cancer immunotherapy
Event details
| Date | 05.12.2025 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Michele De Palma |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract
The rational design of combination therapies is widely considered essential for improving outcomes in advanced cancer. Most current strategies focus on blocking pro-tumoral mechanisms, such as oncogenic signaling or angiogenesis. While effective in the short term, such approaches often drive tumor adaptation through clonal selection or cellular plasticity in the tumor microenvironment, resulting in limited, incremental gains in survival. In contrast, immunotherapies aim to strengthen the body’s own anti-tumor responses, and in some cases can induce durable remissions even in advanced disease. Dendritic cells (DCs), as central regulators of immune activity, offer a compelling opportunity for therapeutic intervention. In this seminar, I will discuss how engineering DCs can reprogram the tumor microenvironment to boost anti-tumoral immune activation and enhance the efficacy of clinically approved cancer therapies. By integrating DC-based strategies with existing treatments, this work highlights the potential of immune-cell engineering to expand therapeutic options for otherwise incurable cancers.
Bio
Michele (Miki) De Palma is a tenured associate professor in the School of Life Sciences at EPFL, where he teaches cancer biology. He has served as executive director and chair of the scientific committee of the AGORA Cancer Research Center over the past four years. Miki trained as a postdoctoral researcher and later became group leader at the Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy in Milan, where he developed gene transfer strategies to engineer monocytes into anti-tumoral immune cells – work that led to a first-in-kind clinical trial in brain cancer (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03866109). Since joining EPFL in 2012, he has received two ERC programme grants and, in 2017, the Robert Wenner Prize for cancer research. In 2023, he was recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science-Clarivate. Research in the De Palma lab focuses on tumor resistance to immunotherapy mediated by myeloid cells and the angiogenic vasculature, and on developing novel platforms of engineered dendritic cell therapies. In his spare time, Miki studies the taxonomy of Scarab beetles in the family Cetoniinae.
This seminar is part of the evaluation of Prof. Michele De Palma for the promotion to Full Professor.
The rational design of combination therapies is widely considered essential for improving outcomes in advanced cancer. Most current strategies focus on blocking pro-tumoral mechanisms, such as oncogenic signaling or angiogenesis. While effective in the short term, such approaches often drive tumor adaptation through clonal selection or cellular plasticity in the tumor microenvironment, resulting in limited, incremental gains in survival. In contrast, immunotherapies aim to strengthen the body’s own anti-tumor responses, and in some cases can induce durable remissions even in advanced disease. Dendritic cells (DCs), as central regulators of immune activity, offer a compelling opportunity for therapeutic intervention. In this seminar, I will discuss how engineering DCs can reprogram the tumor microenvironment to boost anti-tumoral immune activation and enhance the efficacy of clinically approved cancer therapies. By integrating DC-based strategies with existing treatments, this work highlights the potential of immune-cell engineering to expand therapeutic options for otherwise incurable cancers.
Bio
Michele (Miki) De Palma is a tenured associate professor in the School of Life Sciences at EPFL, where he teaches cancer biology. He has served as executive director and chair of the scientific committee of the AGORA Cancer Research Center over the past four years. Miki trained as a postdoctoral researcher and later became group leader at the Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy in Milan, where he developed gene transfer strategies to engineer monocytes into anti-tumoral immune cells – work that led to a first-in-kind clinical trial in brain cancer (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03866109). Since joining EPFL in 2012, he has received two ERC programme grants and, in 2017, the Robert Wenner Prize for cancer research. In 2023, he was recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Web of Science-Clarivate. Research in the De Palma lab focuses on tumor resistance to immunotherapy mediated by myeloid cells and the angiogenic vasculature, and on developing novel platforms of engineered dendritic cell therapies. In his spare time, Miki studies the taxonomy of Scarab beetles in the family Cetoniinae.
This seminar is part of the evaluation of Prof. Michele De Palma for the promotion to Full Professor.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Deanship SV
Contact
- Manuelle Mary