The Antibody and Vaccine Group (AVG) at the Centre for Cancer Immunology has been recognised for its innovative research by the British Society for Immunology.
The Group has been shortlisted for the BSI Outstanding Team Award 2023, which celebrates an exceptional team whose collaborative approach has made a significant impact on immunology research and clinical practice.
For the past 25 years, AVG has been working on monoclonal antibodies, providing ideas, reagents and mechanistic understanding, before translating these findings into treatments for patients.
Over the last year alone the team has contributed new understanding to how tightly an antibody binds to a target could improve treatments for cancer; identified new targets for cancer immunotherapy; developed new antibody formats to deliver stronger immune responses and revealed how certain structures surrounding breast tumours in overweight and obese patients hinder response to therapy and highlighted who continued to be at risk of severe COVID-19 after vaccination in blood cancer.
Professor Jon Strefford, Head of School for Cancer Sciences at the University of Southampton, said: “Cancer is a master at evading the immune system and for more than two decades the AVG have been working together to find new ways to help our bodies find tumours and attack them. Their shortlisting for this award is well deserved and highlights the hard work of their team and collaborators.”
The BSI Immunology Awards Ceremony will take place in April at the Royal College of Physicians, London.
The AVG current members are Aymen Al-Shamkhani, Stephen Beers, Yury Bogdanov, Mark Cragg, Juliet Gray, Sean Lim and Ali Roghanian.