It has become increasingly clear that immune and inflammatory cell behaviour and function contribute to all human diseases and normal tissue repair.

Despite this knowledge, immunotherapeutic approaches to improve treatment of acute/chronic disease and tissue maintenance has only recently gained attention beyond the fields of cancer and infectious disease. These translational gaps (“valleys of death”) stem largely from a failure to effectively link four key pillars of the research-to-practice continuum: basic immunologists/researchers, clinical disease specialists, biotech/pharma and health care economics/policy experts.

UBC has outstanding expertise in each of these areas, but we tend to be siloed in a way that impedes translation. Accordingly, we have gathered a cadre of investigators representing each of these pillars to leverage their connections within their communities to develop a new “Immunotherapy cluster (ITC)” that can facilitate identification, rapid translation and clinical adoption of novel therapeutics.