Cancer vaccines: the perspective of the Cancer Immunology Branch, NCI.

The Cancer Immunology Branch, NCI, is supporting a great deal of exciting research relevant to cancer vaccine development. The few areas highlighted here are representative of ongoing research opportunities, but further progress depends largely on a continued infusion of investigator-initiated ideas to realize the potential of current research areas and open new ones.

Cancer immunology: highlights of the NCI Extramural Immunology Program.

The long-term goal of research supported by the Immunology Program is to better understand immune mechanisms and their regulation in order to develop more effective strategies to strengthen the immune response against cancer. While there has been much progress in the field of immunology in recent years, many major questions remain unanswered. The role of MHC antigens in regulating the immune response to tumors is still unclear, as is the nature of putative tumor-associated antigens which are the targets of this response.

Kinetics of immunoglobulin and specific antibody responses of CBA mice infected with Trypanosoma rhodesiense.

Groups of CBA/CaJ and B-cell deficient CBA/N mice were infected with Trypanosoma rhodesiense EATRO 1886 strain. Survival, parasitaemia, serum Ig levels plus specific trypanosomal IgM and IgG antibodies were assayed and compared during infection. Whereas both strains of mice had similar parasitaemias during the first week of infection, CBA/N parasitaemias were lower than those observed in CBA/CaJ mice during the subsequent study period.