Immunotherapy Center
Links:
|
Research Program
|
Faculty Laboratories:
|
| Andrew Mellor, PhD |
| David Munn, MD |
| Pandelakis Koni, PhD |
| Michiko Shimoda, PhD |
| Affiliated Faculty: |
| Yukia He, MD, PhD |
Yukai He, MD, Ph.D
email: yhe@mcg.edu
Research Emphasis:
The research in my lab is focused on elucidating the basic mechanism of T cell activation following recombinant viral vector immunization and the potential applications of these viral vectors mediated genetic immunization in tumor immunology and chronic microbial infections. It has increasingly been recognized that T cell mediated cellular immunity, including CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL), play an important role in immunotherapy of malignancies and in control of chronic infections such as HBV, HCV, and HIV. Thus, recent efforts in vaccine research are beginning to include strategies to induce cellular immunity, giving rise to a new generation of “T-cell” vaccines. However, the development of “T cell vaccines” has been problematic mainly because of lack of understanding of the basic mechanisms of how the T cell responses are primed and maintained. We strongly believe that in order to rationally design this “T-cell” vaccine to elicit T cell immune responses, elucidation of the basic mechanism of how T cells are primed and the T cell memory is maintained will be the key. The research in our lab mainly includes two major areas: A: T cell priming mechanism: We have been investigating the basic mechanism of T cell priming after immunization with viral vectors, which we believe will be the key to rationally design this “T-cell” vaccine to elicit T cell immune responses. We are interested in defining the parameters that will determine the effector and memory responses of viral vector mediated genetic immunization. B: Genetic immunization against tumor: We are also very interested in using genetic immunization approaches to target antigen presenting cells especially dendritic cells in vivo and ex vivo to elicit anitumor immune responses including CD8+ T cells mediated cytotoxic T lymphocytes and CD4+ T helper cells. And we are also investigating the mechanism of immune suppression in a tumor bearing condition in an effort to better exploit the immune system for tumor immunotherapy
Laboratory members:
Ms. Yibing Peng, B.S, Yanjun Liu, Ph.D.
Selected recent publications:
- He, Y., Zhang, J., Mi, Z., Robbins, P. & Falo, L.D., Jr. Immunization with lentiviral vector-transduced dendritic cells induces strong and long-lasting T cell responses and therapeutic immunity. J Immunol 174, 3808-17 (2005).
- Mi MY, Zhang J, He Y: Inhibition of HIV derived lentiviral production by TAR RNA binding domain of TAT protein. Retrovirology 2005; 2: 71.
- He, Y., Zhang, J., Donahue, C. & Falo, L.D., Jr. Skin-Derived Dendritic Cells Induce Potent CD8+ T Cell Immunity in Recombinant Lentivector-Mediated Genetic Immunization. Immunity 24, 643-656 (2006).
- He, Y. and Falo, LD Induction of T cell immunity by cutaneous genetic immunization with recombinant lentivector. Immunol Res. 2006; 36(1-3):101-17.
- He, Y. and Falo LD Lentivirus as a potent and mechanistically distinct vector for genetic immunization. Current Opinion in Molecular Therapeutics 2007; 9 (5):439-446.
- He Y. Munn, D., and Falo LD Recombinant lentivector as a genetic immunization vehicle for antitumor immunity. Expert Review in Vaccines 2007: 6(6);913-924.