Our laboratory is developing cancer vaccines and testing these vaccines in pre-clinical and clinical studies. The vaccines are directed against melanoma, colon carcinoma, glioma and breast carcinoma.To develop cancer vaccines, antigens recognized by cancer patients' B cells, helper T cells and cytolytic T lymphocytes are cloned and characterized as to their expression in various tumor and normal tissues. In pre-clinical studies the vaccines are evaluated for their capacity to induce humoral, cellular and protective immune responses in animal models that mimic the conditions in cancer patients (e.g. transgenic mouse models or mouse antigen homologue models).  In clinical trials, colorectal cancer patients were treated with anti-idiotypic antibody and recombinant antigen vaccines. Patients developed humoral and cellular immune responses, but the evaluation of clinical responses must await randomized phase II trials.  In future clinical trials vaccine effects may be augmented by chemokines which have been shown to enhance T cell migration toward tumor cells in culture models in the laboratory.

Dorothee Herlyn, D.V.M., D.Sc.

Office Address: The Wistar Institute
36th Street at Spruce
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 898-3962
dherlyn@wistar.org (Herlyn, Dorothee)