1. Trafic
  2. Research and training

Research and training

Research objectives

T-RAFIC aims at tracking therapeutic cells to enhance their efficacy against tumors by:

T-RAFIC aims at understanding therapeutic cell distribution in cancer patients and controlling their trafficking capacity for safer and more efficacious treatments. Cancer remains a major cause of death in the EU and the world with an enormous need for new and effective treatments. Cancer immunotherapies have been established clinically in a growing number of indications and the pace of development is massively accelerating. Currently over 6.000 clinical trials are investigating immune-related treatments in oncology and will likely change the treatment landscape in the years to come. These include both adoptive cellular therapies and immune-modulating treatments such as immune checkpoint blockade. In contrast, the understanding of how such therapies mediate their mode of action is poorly understood. In particular, the role of distribution and relocation of immune effector cells after therapeutic interventions is mostly unknown but represents a key element of therapeutic efficacy and safety, particularly for solid tumors. This is a major challenge to the scientific community as detailed analysis of cellular distributions has been facing technical barriers. T-RAFIC covers a broad range of cellular therapies currently under development and will take advantage of technological advances now permitting tracking and visualization of immune cells under therapeutic influence in vitro and in vivo at an unprecedented resolution. The transfer of new knowledge into efficient cancer treatments requires a true interdisciplinary effort in fields rarely interacting, where experts in multimodal imaging, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, immunology, and immunotherapy are joining forces.

In order to establish immune cell homing and optimized distribution as a key determinant of efficacy for cellular therapies for cancer and thereby provide the rationale for directed interventions and use of companion biomarkers, T-RAFIC defined three objectives to be reached with four work packages: 

  1. Development of analytical tools and tracing techniques to visualize therapeutic immune cell distribution: WP 1 

  2. Define the contribution and mechanism of immune cell distribution and recruitment in CAR and TCR-based therapies: WP 2

  3. Define interventions that allow mechanism-informed redirection of therapeutic immune cells; WP 3 and WP 4

Training objectives

T-RAFIC offers methods and knowledge complying with the highest quality standards of research and provides the DC with tailored skills for career development in academy and industry. The training program is implemented at local level within the host institutions and at European level with the common program spanning seven training meetings at several locations of the network. The training program is based on six main areas of content: 

1. Adoptive cell therapies (ACT) and tools of visualization and analysis including bioinformatics
2. Clinical translation and therapeutic development incl. health economy and patients’ involvement
3. Entrepreneurship, transfer of technology
4. Career development, incl. gender equity and diversity
5. Ethics and scientific Integrity
6. Developing awareness for commitment in science and society: science communication, open science and data sharing and research policy incl. research funding



European and local training

Local level: Each Doctoral Candidate (DC) will be enrolled in a doctoral school and will follow specific training there to undertake a doctorate.

European level: We will organize joint events with the annual scientific meetings for internal data presentation to gather expertise and scientific developments of all projects. It will develop synergies between the labs and their members. The four international conferences will be open each year to external scientists e.g. of other Doctoral Networks and stakeholders like grounders and investors; the biannual workshops for skills and methods and the career evenings to reach the objectives described above will be dedicated to the DCs of T-RAFIC and in some cases open to other DN or Graduate Schools. Each DC will receive certificates of participation indicating ECTS, to be provided to the local Graduate School for recognition. In addition to these training events, the DCs will conduct at least two secondments at an academic and an industrial partner. The mentoring program and the career coaching are also measures set up at the European level on an individual basis. 

Each DC will annually develop a Career Development Plan (CDP) outlining both local and European training objectives in collaboration with their supervisors and mentors. The CDP serves as a strategic tool to define the knowledge and skills required to achieve the scientific goals at each stage of their research project. Additionally, it supports the identification of career aspirations and the implementation of concrete measures to attain them.