Leibniz Institute for Immunotheraphy (LIT)
The Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) is a research institute dedicated to the development of novel, curative immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, chronic inflammation, and autoimmune disease. The Institute’s unique approach is to combine basic immunology and translational research to develop next-generation immune cell therapies. Current strategies focus on selecting optimal immune cell subsets and reprogramming cell function and differentiation using synthetic biology and gene-engineering approaches. The institute is equipped with modern infrastructures, including the José Carreras Center for Somatic Cell Therapy, a state-of-the-art facility that specializes in pharmaceutical development and GMP-compliant production of cell therapeutics.
Within INCITE, LIT will be responsible for the functional evaluation of human CAR-T cells generated within INCITE’s artificial immune niches and the comparison with those produced with current technology.
Luca Gattinoni
Luca Gattinoni, M.D. holds the Chair for Functional Immune Cell Modulation at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He is currently the Director of the Division of Functional Immune Cell Modulation at the The Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT). Dr. Gattinoni graduated from the University of Milan School of Medicine with distinction in 1998 and completed his residency in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute of Milan (INT) in 2003.
He received postdoctoral training in Cellular Immunotherapy and Tumor Immunology with Dr. Restifo at the Surgery Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI, NIH) from 2003-2008. He remained at the NCI until 2019 as Staff Scientist (2008-2013) and NIH Stadtman Investigator (2013-2019). His research focuses on the development of T cell-based immunotherapies for patients with advanced cancer.
Dr. Gattinoni’s contributions to the field include the identification of human stem cell memory T cells (Tscm) and their use into clinical trials of adoptive immunotherapy. More recently, together with his research team, he has identified several transcription factors, epigenetic regulators, microRNAs and metabolic checkpoints governing T cell stemness and Tscm formation that can be harnessed to potentiate T cell-based immunotherapies.
Dr. Gattinoni has published more than 100 manuscripts and is the recipient of several prizes and honors including the 2004 SITC Presidential Award, the 2012 Wilson S. Stone Memorial Award and the 2013 NCI Director’s Intramural Innovation Award.
Esen Sayin
Esen Sayin is a postdoctoral scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy, in the Division of Functional Immune Cell Modulation headed by Prof. Luca Gattinoni. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biotechnology at the Middle East Technical University (METU, Turkey). During her doctorate study, she examined different compositions of collagen, fibroin, and elastin-like recombinamer in the artificial matrices, and the influence of micropatterns, 2D, and 3D microenvironments on bone tissue engineering applications.
Dr. Sayin spent six months at University College London (UK) as a visiting research scholar, where she studied oxygen-limited niches and their effect on tissue-engineered bone. She also performed mechanical tests at The University of Liverpool (UK). After completing her doctoral research, she received the Julia Polak European Doctorate Award from the European Society for Biomaterials.
Within the INCITE project, Dr. Sayin will be responsible for the characterization and functional evaluation of human CAR T cells generated within INCITE artificial immune niches.
