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Chapuis
Aude G. Chapuis, MD

Aude G. Chapuis, MD

Medical Oncology

  • Physician, Fred Hutch
  • Associate Professor, Translational Science and Therapeutics Division, Fred Hutch
  • Member, Immunotherapy Integrated Research Center (IIRC), Fred Hutch
  • John C. and Karyl Kay Hughes Foundation Endowed Chair, Fred Hutch
  • Member, Pathogen-Associated Malignancies Integrated Research Center (PAM IRC), Fred Hutch
  • Affiliate Investigator, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutch
  • Associate Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of Washington School of Medicine
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About

Dr. Aude Chapuis is a physician and researcher who specializes in treating patients with blood cancers at Fred Hutch. She cares for patients receiving stem cell transplants and T-cell therapies and researches how to advance immune-based treatments for cancer and viral infections.

Background

Dr. Chapuis’ expertise is in blood and marrow transplantation and cellular immunotherapy, including treatments that use a patient’s or donor’s immune cells to detect and destroy diseased cells. As an attending physician on Fred Hutch’s Autologous and Allogeneic Transplant Service, she treats people with blood cancers, consults with patients considering stem cell transplantation and provides care for those receiving T-cell infusions in immunotherapy clinical trials.

She leads clinical trials of new immunotherapies and works closely with patients receiving advanced cellular treatments designed to improve outcomes while maintaining safety.

Dr. Chapuis’ research focuses on developing new ways to train the immune system to target life-threatening viral infections and cancers, ranging from HIV to lung cancer to Merkel cell carcinoma. In her laboratory, Dr. Chapuis and her team study the factors that make T-cell therapies successful and apply those insights to design safer, more effective treatments.

Her lab has made key discoveries, including the development of a “bar code” technology used to track T cells after they are infused into patients. This approach helps identify which T cells are most effective at eliminating tumors. With extensive experience designing and leading immunotherapy trials, Dr. Chapuis has also sponsored multiple investigational new drug applications, a critical early step in bringing new therapies through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval process.

Area of Clinical Practice
Adult blood and marrow transplantation, cellular immunotherapy

“Patients who undergo bone marrow transplants endure a lot of hardship, and I believe we can do better. That’s why I do research.”

— Dr. Chapuis

What is adoptive T-cell therapy?

Let’s say that you get infected by a virus — the flu, for example. Your immune system mounts a response, not only killing it but also remembering it, so that you will be protected against that particular virus for your whole life. We’re trying to do the same thing for cancer. With adoptive T-cell therapy, the goal is to take T cells (a type of immune cell) from your body and prime them to target cancer. We do this by enhancing a weapon that T cells already have: receptors that recognize cancer cells. After growing large quantities of these modified T cells in the lab, we then put them back in your body so they can seek and destroy tumors.

What motivates you to conduct research into immunotherapy?

The patients I treat are my biggest source of inspiration. Watching them go through taxing treatments like bone marrow transplants motivates me to keep refining adoptive T-cell therapy so it’s a viable option for more people. Tackling the related scientific challenges also keeps me going, such as choosing which T cells (there are many different kinds) will be most effective against a particular type of cancer and figuring out how to convince a T cell to infiltrate a tumor’s hostile environment. Cancer is complex, but through advances in immunotherapy, we’ve demonstrated that certain kinds are beatable. Now, we’re working to broaden that effect.

Diseases Treated

Leukemia

Melanoma

Merkel Cell Carcinoma

Skin Cancer

Dr. Chapuis and her laboratory team are engineering T cells with particular T cell receptor (TCR) molecules that bind pieces of specific proteins (antigens) and thereby direct T cells to attack cells expressing those antigens. One TCR-engineered immunotherapy targets Wilms’ tumor antigen 1 (WT1), a cancer-promoting protein that is abnormally expressed in myeloid leukemias and certain solid tumors. Dr. Chapuis recently participated in the identification and generation of a natural (native) high-affinity WT1-specific TCR and led the optimization of clinically-applicable methods for moving the WT1-specific TCR gene into T cells.

The Chapuis team is also advancing other immunotherapies for patients with solid and liquid tumors; these new treatments target tumor antigens with engineered TCRs that confer function to both CD8+ (‘killer’) and CD4+ (‘helper’) T cells, as opposed to more typical CD8+ only protocols. In particular, MAGE-A1 antigen-targeting TCRs are being developed for patients with lung and breast cancers. Another project is focused on developing TCR-based therapies to resolve potentially life-threatening viral infections after stem cell transplantation.

Dr. Chapuis’ translational research laboratory is also discovering novel ways to enhance therapeutic immune responses, including by 1) understanding the factors associated with successful “adoptive” transfer of immune T cells, and 2) developing methods that improve the survival, proliferation and anti-tumor activity of infused T cells. These new findings are in turn used to 3) develop clinical strategies to optimally activate therapeutic T cells to specifically eliminate cancer in patients, without the noxious side effects of chemotherapy. 

Dr. Chapuis has extensive experience in developing state-of-the-art methods for preparing certified T cell products for patients and for monitoring the cells after transfer into patients. She designs adoptive immunotherapy trials aimed at targeting tumor-associated antigens, is the sponsor of multiple successful Investigational New Drug Applications (INDs), by which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves clinical testing of new therapies; and leads approved immunotherapy trials.

Thus far, Dr. Chapuis has tracked and characterized antigen-specific T cells in five clinical trials for patients with HIV, melanoma, Merkel Cell carcinoma or leukemia. In these and other trials, the overall persistence of the transferred T cells has been limited. Therefore, Dr. Chapuis and her laboratory team continues developing new strategies to establish optimal T cell function, including by increasing the tumor-binding strength of TCR molecules that bind specific antigens and direct T cells to attack the antigen-expressing cells. With Dr. Phil Greenberg’s lab, they have developed TCR-engineered Wt1-targeting therapies. Recent trials have enrolled patients with leukemia, or patients with non-small cell lung cancer or mesothelioma.

Collaborating with UW’s Dr. Paul Nghiem, Dr. Chapuis is testing Merkel-Cell polyomavirus-specific T cells for patients with metastatic Merkel Cell Carcinoma., an aggressive skin cancer. The most recent trial evaluated a combination therapy designed to increase the ability of TCR-engineered T cells to find and kill Merkel cancer cells and to help the anti-cancer T cells stay active long enough to eliminate tumors. A follow-on trial (NCT03747484) will soon begin enrolling patients.

Languages

English
Italian
French

Education and Experience

Fellowship, Medical Oncology, University of Washington; Postdoctoral Research, Fred Hutch; Pre-doctoral Research, Laboratoire d'Immunopathologie du SIDA

Residency, Internal Medicine, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois; Internal Medicine, Hospital Neuchatelois Pourtales

Internship, Laboratoire d'Immunopathologie du SIDA

MD, University of Lausanne Medical School

Clinical Trials

We make promising new treatments available to you through studies called clinical trials led by Fred Hutch physicians and researchers. Many of these trials at Fred Hutch have led to FDA-approved treatments and have improved standards of care globally. Together, you and your physician can decide if a study is right for you.

Find a Clinical Trial Led by Dr. Chapuis

Publications

Many of our Fred Hutch physicians and researchers conduct ongoing research to improve standards of patient care. Their work is evaluated by others in their field and selected for publication to the United States National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library in the world. See scientific papers this Fred Hutch physician has written.

View Dr. Chapuis's Publications

Your Care Team

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Insurance

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Contact Information

206.667.4369

206.667.7983