Adam Rochussen

Institute for Medical Research

Killer T cells are important agents of the immune system responsible for the continual elimination of cancer cells. Much work has been undertaken by others to leverage these tiny killers to be able to target cancers in a precise way. Without a deeper understanding of the basic biology of these cells, we will struggle to develop these therapies, which currently face challenges. Adam Rochussen has discovered a new isoform of a protein that controls the release of the cytotoxic packages that killer T cells release into cancer cells to kill them. Understanding the molecular machinery at play here is necessary to inform the next generation of T cell-based cancer therapies. This discovery has the potential to be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of CAR T cells, which currently are limited in their applicability and must be given at very high doses, which brings its own side-effects.