The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) invites Letters of Intent (LoI) in the area of Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy from eligible scientists and clinicians for setting-up of Virtual Network Centers (VNCs) for a period of five years to create a centralized platform for sharing concepts and resources bringing in the complimentary expertise of the individual PIs from different organizational settings and partnering scientific institutions to work together to develop and actualize a cancer research agenda.

The purpose is to connect competence in Basic Biology/Clinical Research/Technology Development around "Thematic Research" such as:

• Unraveling the immunosuppressive microenvironment in cancer and development of strategies to overcome them.
• Identification and characterization of newer regulatory pathways for an effective immune response.
• Top down approach for identifying the value of repurposed drugs to act as checkpoint inhibitors, including phase 2 clinical trial.
• Development of novel vectors for CAR-T cell therapies.
• Development of bispecific monoclonal antibodies and Bispecific T cell engagers (BiTEs) for cancer immunotherapy
• In vivo priming and maturation of dendritic cells for boosting immune response.
• NK cell based immunotherapy including amplification of NK cell numbers for therapeutic use.
• Metronomic chemotherapy to boost immunotherapeutic effects.
• Model pre-clinical systems for rapid translation of cellular therapies into clinical trials.
• Overcoming constraints in cellular immunotherapy in solid tumors.
• Deeper understanding of the T and B cell physiology, subsets and use for cancer therapy.