Francesca Sillito
Haematologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital and University College London with a special interest in CAR-T cell therapy and lymphoma, whose PhD showed that forcing mTORC1 on in CD4+ T cells makes them last longer but tire out
Haematologist with a special interest in cellular therapy and high-grade lymphoma, Royal Marsden Hospital and University College London Hospitals (2025–2026) · PhD, UCL Cancer Institute, MRC Clinical Research Fellow (completed 2023) · Specialist haematology training, University College London Hospitals · Medical degree, University College London (2009)
Cancer treatments with engineered T cells, such as CAR-T and TCR-T cells, work only if the infused cells survive and keep fighting. In a 2026 Journal of Immunology paper, with Ronjon Chakraverty as senior author, Francesca Sillito made mouse CD4+ helper T cells produce extra RHEB, a protein that switches on mTORC1, the growth-control complex. After transfer into mice the cells first grew more and lasted longer, but over time they became exhausted: they carried brake-like receptors on their surface and divided poorly when they met their target again. CD8+ killer T cells had been reported to react differently to the same change. The study is in mice and warns that boosting mTORC1 in therapeutic T cells has a cost.
Sillito is a haematologist, a doctor who treats blood diseases and blood cancers. Sillito graduated in medicine from University College London in 2009 and completed specialist haematology training at University College London Hospitals; an early case report from 2011 lists Sillito at Basildon University Hospital. With a Medical Research Council clinical research fellowship, Sillito then did a PhD on T-cell therapies at the UCL Cancer Institute, completed in 2023, working with Ronjon Chakraverty and Hans Stauss; with Angelika Holler and Stauss, Sillito wrote a 2020 review on engineering CD4+ T cells to strengthen cancer immunity. The 2026 paper above comes from that work.
Sillito now works at the Royal Marsden Hospital with a special interest in cellular therapy, including CAR-T, and high-grade lymphoma, and is a principal investigator on several cellular therapy and lymphoma trials. As first author in Haematologica (2025), Sillito studied how blood stem-cell clones change after CAR-T therapy and the risk of later myeloid cancers, and has co-authored UK studies of second-line CAR-T treatment for large B-cell lymphoma from University College London Hospitals and the Royal Marsden Hospital.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | A | Enforcing mTORC1 activity in therapeutic CD4+ T cells promotes persistence but eventual immune exhaustion SIL2026 First author: enforced RHEB-driven mTORC1 activity in therapeutic CD4+ T cells improved early persistence but led to exhaustion. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Francesca Sillito.
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- Ronjon Chakraverty Haematologist and transplant immunologist who studies why T cell immunotherapies succeed or fail, including how tuning T cell metabolism through mTORC1 changes their function.
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