Lunch Talk Series with Bruno Cadilha – Orchestrating Immune Cell Migration in Cancer and Inflammation

Our upcoming Lunch Talk will be hosted by Mohamed-Reda Benmebarek, Group Leader (Team MTT) from BioMed X, and will feature Bruno Cadilha, a clinician scientist at University Hospital Regensburg

• Topic: Orchestrating Immune Cell Migration in Cancer and Inflammation
• Location: DKFZ Communication Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, Heidelberg

Lunch Talk description:

Cellular therapy has become a cornerstone of modern cancer treatment, particularly in hematologic malignancies, where chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies have achieved unprecedented clinical success. However, extending these advances to solid tumors remains challenging, with poor CAR T cell infiltration representing a central limitation to therapeutic efficacy.

Immune cell trafficking is tightly regulated by chemokine receptors, adhesion molecules, and tissue-specific signals that collectively determine when, where, and how immune cells function. In cancer, these mechanisms can exclude or misdirect effector cells, while in inflammatory diseases they may drive pathological immune infiltration and tissue damage.

In this talk, Bruno will present his prior work on chemokine receptor–guided immune cell migration in cancer, with a particular focus on CCR8 and CXCR6 as key determinants of T cell positioning and function within solid tumor microenvironments. These studies demonstrate how targeting migratory pathways can enhance antitumor immunity and improve the efficacy of cellular therapies beyond hematologic cancers.

Building on these findings, Bruno will also provide a perspective on ongoing and future research aimed at modulating immune cell trafficking in inflammatory and autoimmune settings, including graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). By bridging cancer immunology and inflammatory disease biology, this work highlights immune cell migration as a programmable and therapeutically exploitable axis with broad relevance for next-generation immunotherapies.

About Bruno Cadilha

Bruno Cadilha currently serves as a resident doctor for Hematology and Oncology at University Hospital Regensburg. Prior to this position, Bruno held the role of Associate Director for Cellular Therapies at Vector BioPharma, where he led a team of three scientists focused on preclinical development in cell and gene therapy. Bruno’s extensive experience includes serving as Lead of Animal Experimentation for Cellular Therapies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), alongside various teaching and project management roles within the institution.

Bruno has a strong research background in T-cell engineering and adoptive cellular therapies for cancer, contributing to high-impact publications on CAR T-cell therapy and tumor immunology. Alongside his scientific work, he is deeply committed to teaching and to mentoring the next generation of physician-scientists.

This talk will be hosted by Mohamed-Reda Benmebarek, Group Leader, Team MTT.

The Lunch Talk Series is presented by BioMed X and the DKFZ PostDoc Network, with the generous support of DKFZ.