SIC Seminar Series: Professor Oscar Palomares

Over the past decades, preventive and therapeutic strategies targeting Dendritic cells (DCs) have emerged as promising approaches for the treatment of allergic and infectious diseases.

In this talk, we will review recent advances on allergoids conjugated to mannan (allergoids–mannan) as next-generation vaccines for allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT), currently undergoing phase III clinical trials for birch pollen, grass pollen, and house dust mite (HDM) allergies. Allergoids–mannan selectively target DCs, promote the induction of functional allergen-specific regulatory T cells (Tregs), and reprogram monocytes into tolerogenic DCs through mechanisms involving metabolic and epigenetic remodelling.

We will then discuss the capacity of MV130, a sublingual whole heat-inactivated polybacterial vaccine, to prevent viral infections via mechanisms associated with trained innate immunity. Notably, our recent findings also demonstrate that MV130 prevents asthma development up to 9 weeks upon treatment discontinuation in mouse models of HDM-induced airway inflammation.

Finally, we will present novel insights into the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects of cannabinoids, which promote the generation of tolerogenic DCs capable of priming functional Tregs through mechanisms dependent on autophagy induction and metabolic reprogramming. In addition, we will discuss the ability of cannabinoids to restore epithelial barrier dysfunction in the context of viral infections and type 2–mediated allergic airway inflammation.

Bio sketch

Oscar is a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Chemistry, at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, where he leads a research group studying the functional role played by human dendritic cells (DCs) and epithelial cells (ECs) in allergy, inflammatory immune-mediated diseases, cancer and infection as well as in the restauration of healthy immune responses after immunotherapy.

Oscar obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at the Complutense University of Madrid the under the supervision of Drs. Rosalía Rodríguez and Mayte Villalba, before pursuing a Postdoc at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF), University of Zürich in Davos, Switzerland, in the group of Prof. Cezmi Akdis. Oscar returned to the Complutense University of Madrid as an Assistant Professor and started his own research group “Vaccines and Dendritic Cells”.

Note: This seminar will not be offered online.