? Human Immunology Core The Human Immunology Core (HIC) in the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) is one of the first and most active immune monitoring core facilities in the United States. The HIC mission is to provide wet bench expertise for the incorporation of the newest technologies into Phase I/II clinical trials using validated immunology assays, while also offering expert scientific and technical consultation to investigators conducting translational research. Services provided by the HIC are scientific consultation, sample processing, viable cell preservation and storage, standard, customized and novel assays in cellular and molecular immunology, data analysis, and human cell products. The HIC can perform studies on a pilot research basis or at the standard of Good Laboratory Practices, as needed. The Scientific Director of the HIC is Dr. Eline T. Luning Prak, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, who is a clinical pathologist with 20 years of clinical lab experience and research expertise in B lymphocyte biology and immune repertoire profiling. Under her leadership, the HIC substantially expanded its sample accessioning and processing services, created several multicolor immunophenotyping panels for human immune cell subsets, and developed a suite of sophisticated antibody and T cell receptor repertoire profiling assays, including high-complexity immune data analysis capabilities. Core Technical Director Dr. Ling Zhao has expertise in oncogenomics and single cell assays and spearheaded the development and implementation of ultrasensitive protein detection assays. Associated Faculty member Dr. James Riley, Associate Professor of Microbiology, has expertise in lymphocyte isolation, regulatory T-cell biology and T-cell responses in cancer and chronic viral infection. Dr. Riley oversees the cell products service. ACC members accounted for 74 of 173 investigators (43%) using the Shared Resource during the most recent reporting period (07/01/18-06/30/19). Investigators from seven Programs use the HIC?Cancer Therapeutics, Hematologic Malignancies, Immunobiology, Pediatric Oncology, Radiobiology and Imaging, Tobacco and Environmental Carcinogenesis, and Tumor Biology. Since the last renewal, the HIC provided support for more than 290 research projects, including 61 ACC clinical trials, and provided more than 500 scientific consultations, including assistance with 74 grant applications. Services provided by the HIC support multiple high-impact research studies; for example, methods developed in the HIC were also used to create an atlas of large expanded B-cell clones in the human body, using tissues from organ donors (Meng et al., Nat Biotech, 2017). The HIC has a highly skilled team of scientists who help ACC investigators tackle the experimental design, logistical arrangements and bench work for immunology projects large and small.
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