Abstract

This Cambridge Immunology Network Seminar will take place on Thursday 30th April 2026, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Dr Dinis Calado, Senior Group Leader, Babraham Institute and Francis Crick Institute

Biography: Dinis Calado is a Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and Babraham Institute, where his research investigates how the immune system generates long-lasting protection against infection and vaccination, and how the pathways that sustain protective immunity can, when dysregulated, drive cancer development, particularly in later life. Originally from Portugal, Dinis earned his Biochemistry degree from the University of Coimbra and his PhD in Molecular Immunology from the Gulbenkian Institute for Science and University of Lisbon. He then moved to the United States for postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, followed by work at the Max Delbrück Center in Germany as a Special Fellow of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern B cell differentiation and lymphoma development from germinal centres, specialised structures in lymphoid tissues central to antibody responses.

In 2013, Dinis established his research group in London at the Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, which became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. Promoted to Senior Group Leader in 2020, he led the Immunity and Cancer Laboratory. Following completion of the Crick’s 6+6 career development programme, he joined the Babraham Institute as a Senior Group Leader in September 2025. He currently holds a joint appointment between Babraham and the Crick Institute, continuing to advance and expand his research programme.

Dinis’s research is supported by UK and international funders, including the BBSRC , MRC, Cancer Research UK, Blood Cancer UK, and the Institute for Follicular Lymphoma Innovation. He serves on expert review panels, including the CRUK Discovery Research Committee, the MRC Infections and Immunity Board, the Blood Cancer UK Expert Panel, and the canSERV EU-Horizon programme Independent Review Board.

Title: Good and Evil Plasma Cells: Guardians & Saboteurs of Immunity

Abstract: Plasma cells (PCs) are the engine of antibody immunity, capable of guarding us for decades; however, in some cancers these cells sabotage immune defence. I will share two stories. First, using a PC-targeted lineage-tracing and single-cell approach, we map a continuum of PC lifespans, from short to intermediate to long-lived, imprinted early in lymphoid tissues and sustained in bone-marrow niches. Booster vaccination, by re-engaging memory B cells, tilts this balance toward durable, long-lived PCs while curbing intermediate-lived cells typical of priming. This provides a mechanistic rationale for booster benefits and a practical framework to judge “PC quality,” not just antibody quantity. Second, in immune-cold triple-negative breast cancer, we identify an expansion of extrafollicular (EF)-PCs that functions as an antibody-independent checkpoint in tumour-draining lymph nodes. These EF-PCs derail dendritic cell activation and migration, blunting CD8 ⁺ T-cell priming. Removing this EF-PC brake, genetically, pharmacologically, or with antibodies, reconnects dendritic cells to T-cells and reinvigorates anti-tumour responses. Together, these findings reveal the twin faces of PCs: guardians that encode long-term protection, and saboteurs that enforce immune silence in cancer. Understanding, and programming, PC fate offers a path to longer-lasting vaccines and to converting immune-cold tumours into immune-responsive disease.

Host: Maike De La Roche, CRUK

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.