Iva Trenevska

I work on the development of novel cancer immunotherapies, including T cell receptor mimic (TCRm) antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. My work involves testing the specificity and therapeutic potential of a TCRm antibody targeting a wild-type p53 peptide presented in the context of HLA-A2. The advantage of using TCRm antibodies is that they target peptides derived from intracellular proteins, which are processed and presented on the cell surface in the context of HLA. Thus TCRm antibodies enable the targeting of antigens that would not normally be accessible to conventional monoclonal antibodies. I am testing the specificity of the TCRm antibody for its p53 target to determine whether there is cross-reactivity with any other peptides from cancer-related proteins. In addition to this, I am developing the TCRm antibody for CAR T-cell therapy.