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Scientist Roland C. Schelker earns his second doctorate (PhD) with summa cum laude at the LIT

The Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) is pleased to announce the successful completion of Dr. Roland C. Schelker's second doctoral degree.

Article Details

  • Date Published

    February 3, 2025

Following his medical doctorate (MD), Dr. Schelker has now defended his PhD in the field of immunotherapy with the highest distinction, summa cum laude. This extraordinary dual doctorate underscores his outstanding scientific achievements and deep commitment to exploring innovative approaches in cancer immunotherapy.
The project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), took Dr. Schelker deep into the fascinating world of CD8+ T cells. In this context, he uncovered the role of LMO4, a previously underexplored molecule, within these immune cells and highlighted its significant therapeutic potential. These groundbreaking insights open new perspectives for immunotherapy and make a substantial contribution to expanding our understanding of T cell biology and its clinical applications.

Dr. Roland Schelker

LMO4: A Hidden Treasure in Immunotherapy

The research, conducted in collaboration with the LIT, University Hospital Regensburg (UKR), and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), demonstrated that artificially expressing the gene LMO4 in CD8+ T cells significantly enhances their stem-like properties and therapeutic efficacy.

Dr. Roland C. Schelker, the lead author of the study, explains: “By increasing LMO4 expression, T cells remain in a ‘stem-like’ state, which extends their lifespan and improves their ability to combat cancer.”

This discovery has far-reaching implications. The study shows that LMO4 not only boosts signal transduction in T cells but also holds the potential to pave the way for new therapeutic approaches to tackle solid tumors—an area that has seen only limited success so far.

The findings have been published in the high-impact journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

 

An Exceptional Project with Broad Support

The project was supported by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Herr at the UKR and supervised by Prof. Dr. Luca Gattinoni, head of the Functional Immune Cell Modulation Group at the LIT, and Dr. Warren Leonard, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at the NHLBI. The interdisciplinary collaboration between teams at the UKR, LIT, and NIH was pivotal to its success.

Prof. Dr. Luca Gattinoni emphasized the significance of the findings: “This discovery demonstrates how targeted activation of genes, typically silenced in T cells, can greatly enhance their therapeutic properties. It is a milestone that opens up new possibilities for immunotherapy.”

The LIT warmly congratulates Dr. Roland C. Schelker on this remarkable achievement and looks forward to accompanying him in his future scientific endeavors.

 

Further Information

For more details, please refer to the full article published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy:

Roland C. Schelker, Jessica Fioravanti, Fabio Mastrogiovanni, Jeremy G. Baldwin, Nisha Rana, Peng Li, Ping Chen, Timea Vadász, Rosanne Spolski, Christoph Heuser-Loy, Dragana Slavkovic-Lukic, Pedro Noronha, Giuseppe Damiano, Laura Raccosta, Daniela Maggioni, Sree Pullugula, Jian-Xin Lin, Jangsuk Oh, Patrick Grandinetti, Mario Lecce, Leo Hesse, Emilia Kocks, Azucena Martín-Santos, Claudia Gebhard, William G. Telford, Yun Ji, Nicholas P. Restifo, Vincenzo Russo, Michael Rehli, Wolfgang Herr, Warren J. Leonard, Luca Gattinoni. LIM-domain-only 4 (LMO4) enhances CD8+ T-cell stemness and tumor rejection by boosting IL-21-STAT3 signaling. Signal Transduct Target Ther, 2024.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-024-01915-z

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