Sabina Valova

Research:

My main PhD project focuses on understanding how intracellular aminopeptidases shape antigen processing and influence the peptides that are ultimately presented to the immune system. CD8⁺ T cells are specialized immune cells capable of recognizing and destroying tumour cells when they detect peptide fragments displayed on MHC-I molecules at the cell surface. This natural defence mechanism can be harnessed in cancer immunotherapy, including emerging neoantigen vaccine strategies for malignancies such as melanoma and cervical cancer. These personalized vaccines use mRNA encoding tumour-specific peptides unique to each patient, aiming to stimulate tumour-reactive CD8⁺ T cells to achieve tumour control. A major challenge in designing such vaccines is accurately predicting which peptides will be presented. While the proteasome generates many intracellular peptide fragments, approximately 99.9% of these products are rapidly destroyed by the collective activity of cytosolic peptidases. Despite this major role, the contribution of aminopeptidases to antigen processing remains poorly understood. By studying these enzymes, my research aims to improve neoantigen prediction algorithms and support the development of more effective personalized cancer vaccines.

Curriculum Vitae:

I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Experimental Biology at Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic. I then obtained a Master’s degree in Cancer, Stem Cells and Developmental Biology at Utrecht University. During my master’s, I completed two research internships focused on paediatric cancers. My first project investigated an aggressive subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in paediatric patients carrying p53 mutations, which render the tumours resistant to many standard therapies. The project aimed to exploit this mutation as a therapeutic vulnerability using the ”synthetic lethality” approach. My second internship focused on paediatric neuroblastoma, a malignancy characterized by a highly immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. In this project, I performed high-throughput drug screening to identify compounds capable of reactivating immune responses in neuroblastoma–immune cell co-cultures. Using an imaging-based platform, I analysed the differential effects of candidate drugs on tumour cells and immune cells, helping to identify potential strategies to overcome tumour-mediated immune suppression.