Cellular immunotherapy has transformed the therapeutic landscape of hematologic malignancies, with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy achieving durable remissions in selected patient populations. Despite these advances, important clinical challenges remain, including disease relapse, antigen escape, limited persistence of engineered cells, and treatment-related toxicities. Moreover, many hematologic diseases still lack effective cellular therapy approaches.

The Cell Engineering and Hematologic Immunotherapy Group focuses on addressing these limitations through an integrated clinical and translational

research strategy. Our team brings together hematologists and preclinical scientists working at the interface of clinical hematology, synthetic biology, and cell engineering, enabling the rapid translation of clinically driven questions into innovative therapeutic solutions. Clinical observations directly inform our research priorities, while engineering strategies are developed with a clear path toward clinical implementation.

Our research is centered on the development of next-generation CAR T-cell therapies designed to improve specificity, safety, and durability of response.

We pursue multiple complementary strategies, including combinatorial antigen targeting, receptor architecture optimization, and genome-editing approaches aimed at enhancing T-cell function. Through systematic engineering and functional screening approaches,

we seek to generate more effective and reliable cellular therapies for patients with hematologic malignancies.

In parallel with our cell engineering programs, the clinical arm of our lab focuses on improving each stage of the CAR T-cell therapeutic pathway. Our clinical research efforts aim to optimize lymphodepletion regimens, T-cell fitness at leukapheresis, and the identification of biomarkers predictive of response and treatment-related toxicity. We also investigate the influence of prior treatment exposures on CAR T-cell outcomes and explore rational combination strategies designed to enhance the efficacy and durability of cellular therapies. By integrating clinical data with longitudinal biological samples and mechanistic studies, these initiatives seek to refine

CAR T-cell treatment strategies and maximize clinical benefit for patients with hematologic malignancies.

Our research group is embedded within the Vall d’Hebron campus and closely integrated with the Hematology

Department and the Advanced Therapies Unit at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. Approximately 70 patients receive CAR

T-cell therapy annually, providing a unique translational environment that connects clinical practice with laboratory research. This setting has enabled the establishment of a longitudinal biobank containing more than 400 samples from CAR T-treated patients, offering an invaluable resource to investigate mechanisms of resistance and relapse, identify molecular determinants of response, and discover predictive biomarkers that may guide patient selection and treatment optimization.

Through this integrated clinical-preclinical framework, our lab aims to develop next-generation cellular immunotherapies capable of delivering more durable responses and expanding the therapeutic potential of engineered immune cells for hematologic malignancies.