IRIC - Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer

Published on April 30, 2025

In early 2025, Quebec’s Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Énergie (MEIE) awarded $475,000 in funding to Sylvain Meloche’s team, which heads IRIC’s Signalling and Cell Growth Research Unit. Axelys supported the team in the preparation of this funding application under the Programme de Maturation technologique (PSOv2d). This funding leverages additional private funding from Immune Biosolutions and the Société de Recherche sur le Cancer (SRC) respectively.

The subsidized project aims to develop an innovative therapeutic combination against certain cancers, notably lung cancer. This new treatment, which combines a kinase inhibitor with immunotherapy, could be more effective than established standards, enabling a greater proportion of sufferers to be treated.

Understanding biological mechanisms to identify new therapeutic targets

Tissue proliferation is a finely controlled process resulting from a balance between cell division and cell death. In multicellular organisms, cells continually interrogate their environment for nutrients and signals (mitogens, trophic factors, stress) to decide whether to self-renew, proliferate, differentiate or die. Misinterpretation of these signals can lead to the development of cancer.

Sylvain Meloche’s laboratory uses an interdisciplinary approach to understand how signaling pathways control the fate of normal and cancerous cells. Defining the importance and inter-connectivity of these signaling events will lead to a better understanding of the malignant transformation process and help identify new target molecules for cancer treatment.