This project focuses on immunoprevention of pancreatic adenocarcinoma rather than treatment of existing disease. The advantage of having a model to study the development of premalignant lesions is that we can investigate therapies to halt neoplastic progression. Prophylactic vaccines directed against tumor antigens may be one of the most effective prevention approaches under consideration. Vaccines have been used for centuries to help improve host immune responses against infectious pathogens. Boosting a patient's native immune responses against malignancy will provide a life-long tumor surveillance similar to life-long surveillance against infectious diseases preventable by vaccination. Cancer vaccines, particularly those using dendritic cells to deliver the antigen of choice in immunologic context, are showing promising results in controlling cancer. Our proposal to develop a preventive pancreatic cancer vaccine in a spontaneous model of Pan IN lesions is novel and it will provide further support for the possibility of treating patients early before their lesions progress to established tumors. ? ? ?
| Finn, Olivera J; Gantt, Kira R; Lepisto, Andrew J et al. (2011) Importance of MUC1 and spontaneous mouse tumor models for understanding the immunobiology of human adenocarcinomas. Immunol Res 50:261-8 |
