Program Leader
Michael I. Nishimura, Ph.D. Scientific Goal
To understand how the immune system prevents and controls the growth and metastasis of malignancies AND to develop strategies to manipulate the immune system to eliminate local and widely disseminated disease and to prevent its recurrence in cancer patients. Interactions
The Cancer Immunology Program is based on long standing observations that the host immune response can prevent and treat malignancies in humans and animals. In fact, since war was declared on cancer in the early 1970's, research in cancer immunology has led to numerous clinical trials and several FDA approved therapies for a variety of malignancies. These include allogeneic stem cell transplantation alone or with donor lymphocyte infusion for hematologic malignancies, cytokine therapies such as interleukin-2 for melanoma and renal cell carcinoma and interferon-gamma for melanoma, and antibody therapies such as Herceptin for breast cancer, Erbitux for colon and Head and Neck cancer, Rituxan, Zevalin, and Bexxar for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Mylotarg for Acute myelogenous leukemia, Campath for Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and Acastin for colon cancer. Although still experimental, several new and promising therapies are being developed. These include: - New monoclonal that antibodies target other molecules on cancer cells
- Adoptive T-cell and NK cell transfer strategies
- Immune targeting of tumor stroma including inhibitors of angiogenesis
- Potent activators of antigen processing cells
These immune therapies, alone or in combination with other therapies, may help reduce the cancer mortality rates. The diversity of research activities in the Cancer Immunology Program of the Hollings Cancer Center reflects the fact that immunologic research includes almost all areas of biomedical research. More specifically, there is significant research in the areas of: Adoptive T-cell transfer
Antibody/complement
Antigen processing
Apoptosis
Cancer vaccines
Gene therapy
Tumor-mediated immune suppression. As a result, the Program can be divided into several themes or areas of investigation. These include: Immunity in Head and Neck Cancer
Enhancing Anti-tumor Immunity in Cancer Patients
Antibodies and Complement
Immunity in Viral Associated Malignancies
Tumor Microenvironment
Clinical Partners Contact Us
To find out more about this research program, e-mail the Program Leader: Michael I. Nishimura, Ph.D.
Program Leader
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