Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a leading killer of men and women around the
world and is responsible for many deaths in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. While
surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy remain the key treatment options, our lab
is investigating immunotherapy as a 4thmodality of treatment for residual disease.
Immunotherapy is being investigated world wide as an additional therapy for cancer. It
relies on the body's ability to recognize and destroy cancer using the immune system.
While it was believed that the immune system from cancer patients is defective, we now
know that the immune system remains intact. However, tumor specific suppression of
certain aspects of the immune response can occur, particularly those against the patient's
t~or. Im~un~therapy attempts to reduce that'suppression and through in vitro and in
vivo means, re-target the patIent's immune system to destroy theircancei. We.currently
are immunizing NSCLC patients with dendritic cells (DCs), a potent immune activating
cell), with antigens derived from lung cancer cells. We have demonstrated a positive
immunologic response to the antigens contained in the vaccine in our trial. In the current
proposal, we seek to characterize 2 novel-antigens we have identified on NSCLC tumor
cells which serve as targets for immune recognition. The genes, myo-inositol
monophosphatase (IMPA) and guanine nucleotide binding protein (GNAS) were
identified using a method we developed in our lab. We want to characterize these
antigens and determine their overall relevancy to NSCLC. If our studies show us that
they are restricted to tumor tissue and are expressed on the majority oflung cancer tumor
cells, these antigens will be prime candidates for future immunization strategies- Our
ultimate goal is the development of a vaccine which can be utilized not only in the setting
of complementing existing conventional therapies but we hope to have a vaccine which
might prevent lung cancer in susceptible populations across Kentucky.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 7/1/03 → 6/30/06 |
Funding
- KY Lung Cancer Research Fund: $199,980.00
Fingerprint
Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.