Despite this knowledge, immunotherapeutic approaches to improve treatment of acute/chronic disease and tissue maintenance has only recently gained attention beyond the fields of cancer and infectious disease. These translational gaps (“valleys of death”) stem largely from a failure to effectively link four key pillars of the research-to-practice continuum: basic immunologists/researchers, clinical disease specialists, biotech/pharma and health care economics/policy experts.

UBC has outstanding expertise in each of these areas, but we tend to be siloed in a way that impedes translation. Accordingly, we have gathered a cadre of investigators representing each of these pillars to leverage their connections within their communities to develop a new “Immunotherapy cluster (ITC)” that can facilitate identification, rapid translation and clinical adoption of novel therapeutics.