The Cancer ImmunoTherapy Imaging (CITI) Programme, aims to develop a diagnostic non-invasive real-time in vivo imaging tool to visualize immune response in cancer patients undergoing cancer immunotherapy. With this precision immune-imaging tool, it would be possible to select only those patients who are most likely to respond to immunotherapy, and choose the most effective combination therapy, thereby maximising patient outcomes while reducing costs.
CITI programme efforts will be centered on the discovery, validation, and clinical translation of novel peptide-based multimodal imaging probes (optical and nuclear), which specifically target treatment-response relevant immune cell surface markers that define the tumour microenvironment status. This will be a first-of-its-kind national initiative in building a peptide-based “ImmunoOncology imaging toolbox”. Funded by a 5-year, S$22 million Industry Alignment Fund-Pre-positioning (IAF-PP) grant awarded by Singapore’s Health and Biomedical Sciences (HBMS), the CITI programme team has Singapore’s leading experts from across 12 research organisations in orthogonal capabilities, from Immunology, to Chemistry, Imaging, Bioinformatics, Clinical Trials, and Commercial Innovation. The CITI programme also has an inbuilt industry alignment component through which strategic industry partnerships would be explored at any entry point of the CITI programme with any Rx/Dx (e.g., peptides, Abs, small molecules, T cells, etc.) as fits their interests and needs.
For more details on the CITI programme, please view the Executive Summary and press release.
Name
|
Role
|
Position/s |
Institution
|
Ann-Marie Chacko |
Corresponding Principle Investigator (PI)
Imaging Theme PI
|
Assistant Professor, Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Program (CSCB)
Head, Laboratory for Translational and Molecular Imaging (LTMI)
|
Duke-NUS Medical School |
Daniel WS Tan
|
Co-PI
Clinical Theme PI
|
Senior Consultant, Medical Oncology
Director, Experimental Cancer Therapeutics Unit |
National Cancer Centre Singapore |
Laurent Renia
|
Immunology Theme PI
|
Executive Director, Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN)
|
Agency for Science, Technology & Research |
Charles W Johannes
|
Chemistry Theme PI
|
Head, Chemistry, P53 Lab |
Agency for Science, Technology & Research |
Edward G Robins
|
Chemistry Theme PI
|
Head, PET Radiochemistry, Clinical Imaging Research Centre (CIRC)
Head, PET Radiochemistry, Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC) |
National University of Singapore
Agency for Science, Technology & Research
|
Julian Goggi
|
Imaging Theme PI
|
Group Lead, Isotopic Molecular Imaging Laboratory (IMIL), SBIC |
Agency for Science, Technology & Research |
Christopher Laing |
Innovation Theme PI
|
Senior Associate Dean, Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) |
Duke-NUS Medical School |