Renji Hospital unveils immune therapy institute

The Shanghai Immune Therapy Institute was unveiled at Renji Hospital on Thursday, which will focus on basic and clinical research in three fields — cancer immunotherapy, chronic inflammatory disease and transplant immunity, and infectious diseases and vaccines.

Through the institute, Shanghai plans to take a leading global role in the research of new targets and mechanisms, antibody drug research and immunotherapy by 2035, and boost the city's development of medical innovation and the biomedicine industry.

“Setting up such an institute in a hospital and not a university or scientific body is an innovation in itself," said Dong Chen, director of the institute. "Because there are many clinical cases and patients in the hospital, we can have direct discussions with front-line medical staff. It's a combination of basic and clinical research. Our research directly targets clinical treatments. Patients in Renji Hospital provide so many samples and information to study, and can help us speed up the transition of laboratory studies into clinical use more quickly.”

In addition to research, the institute will be a highland for talent training and an industrialization base for new medicine, officials said.