Séminaire CIRI (22.06.2023) : Dr. Sébastien THIS

Sébastien This, Département de microbiologie, 70 immunologie et infectiologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada; " Predicting T cell activation based on intracellular calcium fluctuations: novel approach for antigen-specific T cell isolations "

Abstract: New adoptive T cell therapies rely on the transduction of T cells with a predetermined antigen receptor to re-direct their specificity towards tumor-specific antigens. Despite the development of multiple platforms for T cell receptor (TCR) discovery, this process remains time consuming and/or biased in the quality of the TCR identified, representing a critical bottleneck for broader application of TCR-engineered cell therapies.

With the objective of developing a novel approach for the identification and isolation of antigen-specific T cells that overcomes these limitations, we developed Ca²⁺-CLaP, combining time-lapse calcium (Ca²⁺)-imaging, artificial intelligence (AI), and Cell Labelling via Photobleaching (CLaP). A proof-of-concept study and our advances in its adaption to more complex scenarios and applications will be presented (e.g. identification and purification rare antigen-specific T cells of different affinities among human peripheral blood mononuclear cells). Once optimized, this technology could help fast-track TCR sequence discovery in the context of personalized medicine pipelines.