Carlos Rogerio Figueiredo is an Academy Research Fellow of the Research Council of Finland. He leads the Medical Immuno-Oncology Group (MIORG) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turku, which is also affiliated with the Turku Bioscience Centre. Figueiredo and his research group are studying how cancer evades the human immune system, making the disease resistant to immunotherapies.

Immunotherapies are cancer treatments that do not aim to destroy cancer cells directly, but rather to activate the body’s immune system to fight the cancer. For reasons that are still unclear, some patients do not benefit from immunotherapies.

Figueiredo is developing methods to predict which patients are unlikely to respond to immunotherapies and to identify those who will benefit from them. The new prognostic tools that will emerge from the research could help doctors make decisions when selecting patients for immunotherapies.

Figueiredo’s research group will also study the mechanisms of cancer resistance and develop new rational combination therapies to overcome resistance. The aim is to find alternative treatments that can benefit all cancer patients.

Figueiredo will receive the award next year at the Scandinavian Society for Immunology conference in Stockholm, where he will also be invited to give a lecture.

InFLAMES Flagship is a joint initiative of University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, Finland. The goal of the Flagship is to integrate the immunological and immunology-related research activities to develop and exploit new diagnostic and therapeutic tools for personalised medicine. InFLAMES is part of Research Council of Finland´s Flagship Programme.