Professor Harry Dolstra’s research on Cellular Immunotherapy for Blood Cancer Treatment at Radboud University

Harry Dolstra has been appointed professor of Translational Immunohaematology at Radboudumc / Radboud University. His research focuses on cellular immunotherapy, an innovative form of treatment for blood cancer. In doing so, the immune system clears up cancer cells without causing too much damage to healthy tissues.

Blood cancer has many forms, of which leukemia and lymph node cancer are the most well-known. The prognosis of patients with blood cancer is improving due to developments in chemotherapy, targeted medicines and stem cell transplantation. However, there is still much to gain. The research of Harry Dolstra of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Radboud university medical center focuses on a promising new form of treatment for these and other tumours: cellular immunotherapy.

Delicate balans

This therapy uses cells of the immune system that attack the cancer. ‘Ideally, these cells only attack cancer cells and do not target healthy tissues,’ says Dolstra. However, that is a very delicate balance. With my research we optimize that balance. The immune response against the cancer cells must be as strong as possible, without this having adverse consequences for the patient.’

Dolstra uses vaccines and specialist immune cells obtained from the patient himself or from a donor. He grows these cells in the laboratory and adapts them, after which they are administered to the patient. An example of this is placing certain proteins on the outside of the immune cell, so that they better recognize cancer cells and elicit a stronger immune response. This therapy keeps patients cancer-free for longer.

Killer cells from umbilical cord blood

Another special development is the use of stem cells from umbilical cord blood. Dolstra developed a specific protocol to grow so-called ‘natural killer cells’ from these highly potent stem cells. These immune cells have the nice property that they attack cancer cells in a very targeted way and cause less damage to healthy tissues.

‘Umbilical cord blood is normally not used for anything, but contains very potent stem cells’, Dolstra says. ‘Our application is very promising for the treatment of certain forms of leukemia where no stem cell transplant is used and for ovarian cancer. The first patient studies into this form of therapy have now started. My dream is that we can develop this treatment in such a way that in ten years’ time there will be a product for use in regular healthcare.’

Career

Dolstra (Smallingerland, 1965) studied biology at Utrecht University. He obtained his PhD cum laude at Radboud University on the effects of donor lymphocytes on leukemia (title of thesis: ‘Donor cytotoxic T cell responses against leukemia in allogeneic bone marrow recipients’). As a postdoc he worked at the CRC Institute for Cancer Studies in Birmingham. He has been working at Radboud university medical center since 1999. Since 2017 he has been director of the Stem Cell Therapy facility at Radboudumc. Dolstra received several grants, including from KWF, ZonMw, and NWO. He is also project leader of DARE-NL, a national knowledge platform for the development of cell therapy medicines against cancer.
Dolstra has been appointed Professor of Translational Immunohaematology for a period of five years, effective June 1, 2023.