Spectral 5-Laser Flow Cytometer

• Subject Area: Medicine ; Neurosciences
• Term: Funded in 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 564768645

The last decades have seen advances in the development of effective immunotherapeutic strategies. In particular, in vitro expanded T cells armed with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) have demonstrated their effectiveness in clinical studies. Natural killer cells are considered the next wave in adoptive cell therapy. For the immunotherapy of primary brain tumors and brain metastases, the Research Lab of the Department of Neurosurgery focuses primarily on the subtype “adaptive NK cells” and CAR-modified NK cells. For a planned clinical application of the ex vivo modified and expanded immune effector cells, it is essential to record their purity as well as the degree of activation/differentiation, metabolic exhaustion, immune checkpoint regulation and proliferation capacity in detail in order to optimize the protocols for genetic modification or to obtain an optimal cell therapeutic agent for expansion. Furthermore, it is known that an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) leads to limited clinical efficiency, especially in solid tumors. There is still a great need for research to identify the responsible TME cell types, their frequency in the tumor and their interactions with immune effector cells, such as adaptive NK cells and CAR-NK cells, but also to modulate immunotherapy in such a way that an adaptive tolerance induction or immune evasion of the tumor can be limited. In this context, the Research Lab of the Department of Neurosurgery is conducting research into adjuvant conditioning of the TME, e.g. through selective delivery of immunomodulatory therapeutic agents, such as Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists. The aim here is to reprogram the TME using TLR agonist-loaded nanoparticles in order to induce a Th1-shaped or pro-inflammatory environment, which should ensure the functionality and persistence of the NK cells and other immune effector cells. Here it is particularly important to correlate the phenotypic data with OMICs data in order to understand the interaction of the TME and tumor cells and response to immunomodulatory therapy. For the research goals described above and further research projects, a spectral cell analyzer is required in an S2 genetic engineering environment, since we work with S2-GMOs. This device is intended to allow high-dimensional cell phenotyping of heterogeneous cell populations. In particular, high sensitivity is required to correctly identify weakly stained or rare cell populations. The proposed device should enable the simultaneous measurement of at least 50 different fluorochrome-labeled antibodies or ligands that have bound to the cells to be analyzed. The system is also intended to ensure expansion of multicolor panels to keep pace with future fluorochrome development.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Spektrales 5-Laser Durchflusszytometer
• Instrumentation Group: 3130 Blutanalyse- und -differenziergeräte
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Leader: Professor Dr. Achim Temme