The three research projects described in this program represent novel approaches to enhancing T cell mediated immunity to tumors. Monitoring the development and function of tumor-specific T cells will be requisite for determining the efficacy of these immune enhancing strategies, and for determining the mechanisms by which these interventions mediate their anti-tumor effect. Hence, the Immunology Core will provide a variety of sophisticated, quantitative methods to illustrate the efficacy and define protective mechanisms of the therapeutic strategies described in this research program. Many of these assays require equipment and technologies which are currently in place in the Immunology Core Laboratory, but not in the labs of the individual project directors. Hence, these immunologic assays will standardize and normalize observations made in each of the three projects, and will streamline both monetary and time costs which would otherwise be required to duplicate and develop these assays in individual labs. The Immunology Core will interface with each project, assessing the effects of immunotherapies on 1) cytokine production which regulates the development and protective immunity, 2) APC functions which are essential to the development of protective immunity, and 3) T cell selection and the antigen specificity of tumor- reactive T cells. In addition, the Immunology Core will perform a research aim to measure expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokines, vascular adhesion receptors and chemokines that regulate effector T cell recruitment in malignant tumors.
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