Marc de la Roche – Maike de la Roche | A New Route to Precision Cancer Immunotherapy

The de la Roche laboratories developed a highly specific antibody that recognises LGR5 with remarkable accuracy. This matters because LGR5 is also present at very low levels in few healthy tissues, making it a promising target for therapies that attack cancer cells while sparing the rest of the body. Until now, the lack of reliable antibodies has held the field back. This new antibody changes that.

Rather than stopping at a single treatment approach, the research team explored how the same antibody could be adapted into different forms of immunotherapy. One version delivers a toxic drug directly into cancer cells. Another works by bringing the killer cells of the immune system into close contact with tumours, helping them to recognise and kill the cancer cells. A third uses engineered immune cells programmed to hunt down LGR5-positive cancer cells.

In laboratory studies and mouse models, all three approaches showed the ability to reduce tumour growth, with some producing striking results.

A key insight from the research is that different cancers – and different patients – may benefit from different therapeutic strategies, even when targeting the same molecule. This ‘bottom-up’ approach, starting with a well-validated antibody and building tailored treatments from it, offers flexibility that is often missing from cancer drug development.

By combining deep biological understanding with practical therapeutic design, the team’s work highlights a future where cancer treatment is not just more powerful, but more carefully matched to the disease it aims to defeat.