Manuel Albanese

Our main interest is to develop and adapt advanced gene editing technologies for various laboratory and therapeutic applications. The main goal is to establish innovative therapeutic approaches against different diseases, either by functional delivery of gene editing machineries through engineered extracellular vesicles, or by modulation of human lymphocyte activation and effector functions to improve lymphocyte-based immunotherapy.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are still the most common treatment strategies. However, due to the heterogeneity of cancers and patients, there is no single effective therapy. Tailoring an individualized combination of treatments to each cancer patient is the most promising option for eradicating cancer and preventing recurrence.

Infectious diseases also cause millions of deaths each year. Once infected, most viruses are eliminated by our immune system. However, some can persist in the human host for long periods of time, establishing what is commonly referred to as viral latency. These viruses are responsible for a variety of diseases that can be chronic and require lifelong treatment, representing a significant socioeconomic burden to the global population.

Our research focuses on the development of novel therapeutic strategies that will revolutionize current cancer and antiviral treatments. Our group is currently developing an extracellular vesicle-based therapeutic approach to deliver drugs or effector proteins to the target cells of interest. In addition, we are using cutting-edge gene editing technologies in human primary cells to investigate the key cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in host-pathogen interactions in various infectious disease models to advance our understanding of these processes and identify new potential therapeutic targets.

Our goal is to develop therapies tailored to each patient, harnessing the potential of personalized medicine. In this way, we aim to significantly improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the impact of these devastating diseases.
Major research project:

“Engineered extracellular vesicles for personalized leukemia therapy”.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy are still the most common treatment strategies. Immunotherapy is becoming another important approach to treating some cancers, mainly in combination with other treatments. Our group is currently developing a therapeutic approach based on extracellular vesicles to deliver drugs or effector proteins to the target cancer cells thus creating a universal yet customizable therapeutic strategy that can be adapted for different applications in a patient-specific manner.