NCN grant for Dr Alicja Przybyszewska-Podstawka for research on new therapies for breast cancer

26 08 2025

Dr Alicja Przybyszewska-Podstawka from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw has received a grant from the National Science Centre (NCN) in the SONATINA 9 competition for her project entitled ‘Advanced high-throughput microfluidic platform for the screening of modified T lymphocytes’. The aim of the research is to develop novel cancer therapies that could benefit patients with breast tumours.

CAR-T therapy has revolutionised the treatment of blood cancers, and ongoing studies show promising results for solid tumours and autoimmune diseases. This therapy involves modifying T lymphocytes — immune cells capable of recognising and destroying cancer cells. Dr Przybyszewska-Podstawka’s team intends to select the most active T lymphocytes directed against breast tumours and to investigate the mechanisms of immune cell exhaustion that limit the efficacy of this treatment.

The innovative approach involves encapsulating the modified T lymphocytes and cultivating them in tens of thousands of micro-bioreactors, which are uniform droplets. The team will then develop methods to identify the most effective immune cells, ultimately selecting T lymphocytes specifically targeting breast tumours that could substantially improve cancer therapies. This methodology may also be applied to research on infectious diseases, providing a powerful tool for the development of advanced cell-based treatments.