10) Combining the delivery of PIB mRNAs with miRNA mimics showed cooperative effects and initiated non-viral cDC1 reprogramming.

9) Importantly, miR-142 improved cancer cell reprogramming and enhanced anti-tumor immunity in vivo, leading to reduced tumor growth and increased survival rates.

8) Functionally, miR-142-enhanced cells produced more IFN-λ1, a cytokine strongly associated with cDC1 biology and anti-tumor immunity. We further identified TGFBR1 as a miR-142-regulated barrier to cDC1 reprogramming.

7) We then analyzed the contribution of canonical and non-canonical miRNA products to cDC1 reprogramming. While miR-124-3p recapitulated miR-124’s effects, the canonical miR-142 strands did not enhance cDC1 reprogramming. Instead, multiple 5′ isomiRs cooperated to achieve the phenotype.

6) Meanwhile, miR-124 acts by increasing chromatin accessibility and creating a permissive environment for the reprogramming factors PU.1, IRF8 and BATF3 (PIB) to activate cDC1 programs.

5) Mechanistically, miR-142 enhances reprogramming fidelity, repressing fibroblast identity and strengthening cDC1-specific programs. This is highlighted by increased expression of key cDC1 markers, including XCR1.

4) Two clear hits emerged: miR-124, which increased reprogramming efficiency; and miR-142, which improved cDC1 lineage fidelity. And these effects were conserved across mouse and human systems.

3) Despite what is known for other lineages, the role of miRNAs and isomiRs in immune cell conversions remains undefined. What did we do? We screened 15 candidate miRNAs for their role in type 1 conventional dendritic cell (cDC1) reprogramming.

1) 📢 New study out in @CellReports: We uncover how microRNAs (miRNAs) and their isoforms (isomiRs) regulate immune cell specification and reprogramming. Read it here: www.cell.com/cell-reports... A thread 🧵 #microRNA #reprogramming #immunotherapy

1/2 We’re thrilled to announce our fourth keynote speaker for the Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference! Willem Mulder (Radboud University Medical Center/ Eindhoven University of Technology) is a leading researcher in immune-imaging and precision immunotherapy.

1/2 We’re happy to announce our third keynote speaker for the Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference! Sine Reker Hadrup (Technical University of Denmark) develops technological platforms to study T cell reactivity in disease contexts.

1/2 The Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference introduces Session 2: Synthetic Biology & Gene Editing, joining William Nyberg (Karolinska Institutet), Axel Hyrenius-Wittsten (Lund University), and Mirco Friedrich (DKFZ German Cancer Research Center).

1/2 The Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference will have a dedicated @scilifelab.se session with Tina Catela Ivkovic (Center for Translational Genomics), Mikael Mattsson (Drug Discovery and Development), and Anahita Bakochi (BioMS).

1/2 The Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference introduces Session 1: Cell Engineering & Reprogramming. The Pereira lab will share the stage with Judit Svensson Arvelund and Özcan Met to discuss emerging approaches in immune cell engineering and cancer immunotherapy.

1/2 We’re thrilled to announce Adi Barzel (Tel Aviv University) as a keynote speaker for Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference! His work explores in vivo genome editing and strategies to engineer T and B cells for therapeutic applications.

1/2 We’re excited to announce our first keynote speaker for Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference! Sai Reddy (ETH Zurich) works on engineering the immunogenome & reprogramming immune cells for applications in biotechnology, vaccination & immunotherapy.

1/2 Registration is OPEN for the Immunity by Design: In Vivo Immune Cell Engineering Conference!✨ Join us in Lund 22–23 Oct 2026 in a vibrant environment that brings together researchers from all career stages. #ImmuneEngineering #Immunotherapy #BiotechIndustry

1/4 Our new protocol paper is out in STAR Protocols!🎉✨ We outline how to identify transcription factor (TFs) networks for immune cell reprogramming. Read full paper here: www.cell.com/star-protoco...

1/2 If you didn’t have an exciting scientific event planned for the Fall, you do now! We are thrilled to announce the Immunity by Design: In VivoImmune Cell Engineering Conference, taking place in Lund 22-23 October 2026. #ImmuneEngineering #Immunotherapy #BiotechIndustry

1/1 We are recruiting an Assistant Professor in Immuno-oncology and Immune Cell Engineering to join the newly established Division of Immuno-Oncology at Lund University! @lund-university.bsky.social

1/3 Huge congrats to our team member Sandhya Malla @sa2430ma.bsky.social, who was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by #Cancerfonden with her project “Decoding The Regulatory Grammar of Transcription Factor-Mediated Immune Reprogramming”!

1/2 Our PhD student Abigail Altman was one of three winners for Best Poster at the 2026 DGfI-Spring School on Immunology (@dgfi-org.bsky.social) held in the village of Ettal. She presented an outstanding poster: Programming Dendritic Cell Diversity with Direct Cell Reprogramming for Immunotherapy.

Another standout moment was the keynote by Adrian Hayday on γδ T cells, truly insightful. He also highlighted Coimbra’s scientific heritage, including the Laboratório Chimico (1772) & its role in shifting from theoretical to experimental science, an early European commitment to lab research. /FP

1/2 New PhD students, new ideas, new science! Excited to see what we’ll build and discover together. Welcome to the lab!✨ Find out more: pereiralab.com

Currently on the slopes of Keystone, Colorado attending the for the Symposium Myeloid Cells: Functional Heterogeneity with Therapeutic Promise. It has been a fantastic meeting so far; inspiring science, great discussions on the slopes, and exciting new perspectives on myeloid cells.

Excited to welcome our new postdocs to the lab! Looking forward to exciting science, collaborations, and discoveries together. Welcome aboard!✨ Read more about them on our website: pereiralab.com

We are happy to announce that Ervin Ascic was awarded the Best Cancer Thesis of 2025 at Lund University!

We’re excited to share that our recent paper, “A combinatorial transcription factor screening platform for immune cell reprogramming”, has been selected for the cover of the January issue of Cell Systems!✨

12) Take-home message: REPROcode is a versatile, single-cell-resolved platform to decode TF logic and engineer immune cells, from DC subsets to NK-like cells. REPROcode has broad future applications in cancer, autoimmunity, and tissue repair.

11) Finally, we experimentally validated an NK reprogramming combination: TBX21, ETS1, NFIL3, and EOMES generated NK-like cells expressing CD56, NKG7, NCR1, GZMB, with functional capacity for degranulation and cytokine release.