The “Immunity program” at INT stems from the remarkable experience developed in the Units of the Clinical Departments in all aspects of immune-related treatment of an increasing range of human cancers, fostered by the ever increasing number of clinical trials of immune intervention being carried out at our Institute. 

The Immunity program also builds upon the unique, long standing and broad research experience developed in different Units in the Department of Research, in basic, pre-clinical and translational tumor immunology. 

The main goals of the integrated pre-clinical and clinical research activity, focusing on immunity, include:  promoting a better understanding of the immune circuits explaining patients’ response to immunotherapy, deciphering mechanisms of innate and acquired resistance to immune checkpoint blockade, defining at pre-clinical and clinical levels the potentially effective combinatorial approaches to counteract tumor-dependent immune suppression, identifying biomarkers able to predict responsiveness or resistance to immunotherapy.  By pursuing these goals, the Immunity program at INT aims at  improving the fraction of responding patients, broadening the types of tumors that can be treated by immunotherapy, providing evidence for enhanced efficacy compared to conventional approaches, and extending the usage of  immunotherapy to adjuvant, neoadjuvant and first line settings