Treasures from nature From natural antibody responses to novel immunotherapies for cancer

The starting point of this thesis was the contention that exploring the B-cell immune response of cancer patients who have responded exceptionally well to immunotherapy, can lead to new immunotherapeutic options for cancer. The work focusses on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the hematopoietic malignancy that can most often only be cured when an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is performed to induce a graft-versus-leukemia (GvL) immune response. Various immune cell types play a part in the GvL response, of which B cells had our particular interest. B cells carry the code for unique immunoglobulins that recognize native antigen, and accordingly these antibodies can be used to target said antigen. Thus, by studying the B cells of long-term tumor-free patients in order to find tumor-reactive B cells, we aimed to identify new leads for therapy.