Grant: Project Grant

Standard of care in pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) includes topoisomerase inhibitors, microtubule targeting drugs and corticosteroids that are administered over a two-year treatment regimen. Despite cure rates of 90%, the long duration of such drastic chemotherapy in pediatric patients has immediate as well as long-term consequences that irreversibly alter their quality of life. Moreover, the prognosis in adolescent/adult T-ALL and in relapse T-ALL at all ages is appalling. Treatment-resistant disease suggests that current chemotherapy fails to target leukemic cell vulnerabilities. In this era of precision medicine, we propose to identify tumor-specific antigens (TSA) in order to trigger an immune reaction against these TSAs that are absent in normal T cells and other normal cell types. The proposed work will pave the way to precision medicine at its best, based on the unique capacity of the immune system to mount a highly specific immune response against antigens that are detectable in leukemic cells only and will thus spare normal cells. To meet this challenge, we build on our uniquely converging expertise on cutting-edge omics technologies and TSA discovery (Thibault and Perreault), and state-of-the-art approach to leukemic stem cells in T-ALL (Hoang). We believe that any blood cancer patient would wholeheartedly exchange a two-year chemotherapy treatment protocol with a therapeutic vaccine.