In 2025, we celebrate the enourmous success of 3 researchers at the Department of Immunotechnoloy who managed to secure a large amount of funding for their research groups.

Prof. Mats Ohlin has been awarded 5.4 MKSEK from The Swedish Research Council (Medicine and Health) for the 4-year project "Allergen-specific immunotherapy and human antibody responses – an outcome and epitope-centric view".

Prof. Malin Lindstedt has been awarded 4.3 MSEK from The Swedish Research Council (Natural and Engineering Sciences) for the 4-year project "Novel strategies for antibody-based targeting of myeloid cells in solid cancers". On top that, she has been awarded 3 MSEK from the Swedish Cancer Society for the project "Antibody-based targeting of myeloid cells in solid cancers; mechanistic insights, predictive biomarkers and new treatment approaches”.

Ass. Prof. Anna Gerdtsson has been awarded 3 MSEK from the Swedish Cancer Society for the project "AI and spatial biology for target identification and guided treatment of ovarian cancer”. The summaries of the projects follow:

Allergic disease mediated by allergen-specific antibodies of the IgE isotype is a major cause of morbidity and poor quality of life as well as of costs for society. Allergen-specific immuntherapy (AIT) is a disease-modifying treatment with potential to offer cure through remodelling of the immune response towards the allergens. In this project we investigate the complexity of the antibody response towards major grass pollen and assess its relation to outcomes of immunotherapy. The study will identify antibody-based biomarkers that link to clinical treatment outcomes.

Malin's projects aim to develop multispecific antibodies that enhance anti-tumor immunity by targeting myeloid cells and tumor-associated antigens. Insights from spatial tissue analysis will guide the design of bispecific antibodies with improved targeting and immunomodulatory function, and effects on antigen presentation will be evaluated in physiologically relevant ex vivo tumor models. This multidisciplinary effort seeks to create innovative immunotherapeutic strategies for head and neck, esophageal, and gastric cancers.

Anna's project will combine deep learning from images with spatial omics profiling and evaluation of immune modulatory targets to advance immune stimulatory therapies for ovarian cancer. It will contribute with models for patient stratification from low-plex imaging of routine pathology samples. Identification and comprehensive molecular characterization of tumor-immune interaction governing outcome will highlight therapeutic targets in subsets of patients, which will be evaluated in patient-derived tumor models.