led by Sébastien Lacroix-Desmazes
We aim at understanding the reasons for unexpected immunogenicity of some therapeutic proteins and develop original methods to foster long-lasting and specific immune tolerance.
The group “Immunogenicity of protein therapeutics” (head: S. Lacroix-Desmazes) works on the immunogenicity of protein therapeutics, with an emphasis on therapeutic pro-coagulant factor VIII. To address this, we develop multi-factorial approaches based on the analysis of patients’ biological material, and the study of the interplay between therapeutic proteins and immune effectors in vitro, and in animal models. With this, we investigate the reasons for the development of neutralizing immune responses to harmless molecules and for the heterogeneity in immune responses to protein therapeutics among patients. Finally, we develop strategies to restore a specific immune tolerance to protein therapeutics or to eliminate pathogenic immune effectors. We also generate engineered recombinant protein therapeutics with lower immunogenicity.