Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination

Protein transfer approach to cancer vaccine development

International Conference & Exhibition on Vaccines & Vaccination

22-24 Nov 2011 Philadelphia Airport Marriott, USA

Periasamy Selvaraj

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Vaccines Vaccin

Abstract:

Immune system plays an important role in controlling the development and progression of cancer and the associated metastatic disease. Many studies have shown that transfer of genes encoding immunostimulatory molecules (IS Ms) into tumor cells results in induction of protective antitumor immune response. However, this gene transfer approach is time consuming and requires live tumor cell lines, which is diffi cult to establish for many tumors. As an alternative, we have used a proteins transfer approach to modify tumor cells or membranes derived from tumor cells to express ISMs. Th is procedure does not require live tumor cells and can be completed within hours if isolated tumor membranes and purifi ed GPI-ISMs are available. We found that vaccination of mice wi th tumor cells or membranes expressing ISMs induced protective antitumor tumor immunity. Th ese studies suggest that protein transfer approach can be used to develop vaccines from patients� tumor tissues, which can be easily adapted to clinical settings to vaccinate cancer patients to prevent the emergence of metastasis in the future.

Biography :

Periasamy Selvaraj received his PhD from Christian Medical College, Vellore and did his postdoctoral training at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He served on the faculty of Harvard University as an Instructor from 1988-1990 and then moved to Emory University Atlanta in 1990 as an Assistant Professor. Since 2010, Dr. Selvaraj has been Professor of Pathology in the School of Medicine of the Emory University at Atlanta, GA. His area of expertise includes development and testing of novel vaccine compositions for treatment of cancer.