What is IMMUTOL?
The IMMUTOL consortium brings together experts and institutions from various sectors, ranging from research institutions and academies to patient associations, hospitals, and corporate SMEs.
IMMUTOL members collectively address technological challenges in the development of off-the-shelf cellular products for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, focusing on different and complementary steps of the development chain. These steps include basic research in the biology of immunotolerance mechanisms, cells with different therapeutic approaches, clinical translation, regulatory aspects, and related healthcare and economic technology.
Immutol Objective
IMMUTOL aims to address unmet medical needs using modern technological approaches that range from the initial design of an innovative cellular product, through in vitro and in vivo preclinical testing, to innovative GMP manufacturing processes and preparation of applications for clinical trials.
With a progressively increasing disability, Multiple Sclerosis is incurable and greatly diminishes patients’ quality of life, imposing a significant burden on society in terms of therapy costs and chronic need for care.
The introduction of disease-modifying therapies, based on anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, has provided an improvement in disease control. However, the drawback of these therapies is that they can have adverse effects due to generalized immune suppression and must be administered lifelong to mitigate inflammation and partially compensate for organic dysfunction.
There is a need for new, safe, and effective therapies for multiple sclerosis that target the root cause of the disease, to reduce treatment duration and frequency, as well as to limit side effects.
The current goal of IMMUTOL is to accelerate the development and validation of an advanced therapeutic drug, based on vitamin D3 (VitD3) modified tolerogenic dendritic cells optimized to treat patients with immune-mediated diseases.
IMMUTOL will develop a more potent and long-lasting treatment for autoimmune diseases with unmet medical need, particularly multiple sclerosis, i.e. paving the way for new cell-based tolerogenic therapies to cure or reverse various autoimmune diseases.
Meet the PIs
Silvia Gregori
Coordinator of IMMUTOL. Head of the mechanisms of peripheral tolerance Unit at SR-Tiget.
Eva Martínez Cáceres
Head of the Immunology Service at Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and PI, Coordinator of the Immunopatholy group at IGTP
Anja ten Brinke
Project coordinator and scientific advisor Immunomonitoring services and group leader at department of Immunopathology at SQ
Marieke van Hams
Professor of Biological Immunology, University of Amsterdam and Head department of Immunopatholy at SQ
James Hutchinson
Professor and group leader at UHREG
Ralf Linker
Professor and Head of Neurology at UHREG
Jordi Martorell López
Head of Vascular Engineering and Applied Biomedicine at IQS
Felipe Prosper Cardoso
Professor and Head of Cellular Therapy Unit and Co-Director of Haematology and Haemotherapy Unit Haematology and Oncology Specialist at UNAV
Oriol Penon
Business Innovation Director at ASP
Rok Hren
Researcher at SRI and Research Assistant Prof. at the University of Ljublijana
Gabriella Dessole
Experienced Grant Manager with a strong scientific background at INN-Acta
Kinga Zor
Grant Manager (INN-Acta) with long track record in academic research
Silvia Torres Vicente Ruiz
Director of ADEMTO