Research couple brings optimized cancer treatment home to Gothenburg

After four years in Perth, Australia, Jonas and Lisa Nilsson are back in Gothenburg. They’ve brought with them a new manufacturing protocol for tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, known as TILs. This treatment could be critical for patients with no other options.

TIL therapy involves extracting immune cells from a patient’s tumor, expanding them in the lab, and then returning them in much larger numbers. For patients who don’t respond to immunotherapy, it may represent a last resort.

Jonas Nilsson, professor of experimental cancer surgery at the Sahlgrenska Academy, explains:
“Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of metastatic melanoma and given many patients long survival. But for about half, it doesn’t work. For them, TILs may be an alternative.”

From Perth to Sahlgrenska

In Australia, Lisa Nilsson developed a new cell culture protocol. Using G-Rex vessels, it’s possible to scale up immune cells from a few billion to many times more.

In a clinical trial in Gothenburg, where the team treated liver metastases in ocular melanoma, they showed their first method was feasible and relatively safe—but the number of TIL cells was a limiting factor. With Lisa’s new protocol, it’s now possible to produce enough cells even for the toughest cases. That technology is now being applied to hard-to-treat malignant melanoma in Gothenburg.

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“The biggest challenge is that the technology has to be adapted to each GMP lab—that is, the specialized facilities where drugs are produced. That’s why we’re now training staff at the Cell and Tissue Laboratory in Gothenburg,” says Lisa Nilsson.

The work is carried out in close collaboration with healthcare, especially Professor Lars Ny and Axel Nelson, both senior oncologists. Researcher Rebecca Riise will manage the manufacturing also in the next trial, which is expected to start in early 2027.

A chance for more patients

TIL therapy was recently approved in the US, but it remains very expensive and available only at a handful of specialty clinics. Jonas Nilsson believes that producing the cells locally could make the treatment accessible to far more patients, and enable research to be conducted to improve the therapy.

“Academic trials are underway in several parts of the world to make these treatments more affordable and accessible. In Sweden, a collaboration between the universities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Lund has just been funded, which will partly help support the rollout of TIL therapy,” he says.

Studies show half of patients’ tumors respond to the TIL treatment and about one in four melanoma patients can significantly extend survival with TILs, even if they didn’t respond to previous immunotherapy. For patients with no other options, it’s a real source of hope.

Knowledge transfer

The next milestone is proving that the method works in Gothenburg. The first clinical trial trained nurses, biomedical scientists, and doctors in cell therapy—training that will speed up the launch of the next trial.

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The team also plans to develop the next generation of TIL therapies, where their experience with RNA therapy in Australia could be key to making immune cells even more effective.

Making a diference

The NEO-TIL project has just received major funding from the Sjöberg Foundation’s Flagship program. In addition, the US company ScaleReady has donated advanced equipment and materials so the work can begin right away.

“This is truly a fantastic gift that lets us get started without delay. It also means a lot that we can build on the contacts we made in Australia with ScaleReady and others,” says Lisa Nilsson.

“For us, it’s essential that the research doesn’t stop in the lab. We want it to make a difference in healthcare—for patients who currently have no other options,” adds Jonas Nilsson.