? IMMUNOLOGY AND IMMUNOTHERAPY PROGRAM The Immunology and Immunotherapy of Cancer Program (IM) represents a merger of the former Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy and the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Immune Reconstitution Programs that took place with the approval of the External Advisory Board in 2012. The major overall goals of the program are to understand the nature of the immune system and its response to malignancies and to explore auto- and allo-immune responses to cancer with the goal of enabling the discovery and development of more effective anti-tumor immunotherapy. These goals will be achieved by fostering collaborative research, advancing the latest technologies to probe immunological mechanisms, and by enhancing the infrastructure for clinical translation. Research by program members has resulted in exciting new developments in both understanding immune function and developing novel therapies. Advances include the development and application of CyTOF and high throughput sequencing for evaluating cellular function and responses and the translation of important concepts to the clinic in promising early phase clinical trials Co-led by Robert Negrin, MD and Edgar Engleman, MD, the 32 members of the program represent nine departments in the School of Medicine. Program members are major participants in one NCI P01, a number of NCI R01s, R21 and R33 and a NIH T32. Peer-reviewed funding is represented by a total of $12.2M in total costs/year of which $2.4M is from the NCI, $5.5M from other NIH Institutes, and $4.4M from other peer-reviewed sources. During the past five years, over 300 papers have been published, of which 22% are intra-programmatic and 32% inter-programmatic. Many of these manuscripts reflect external collaborations. Future aims include the use of new technologies to analyze the immune responses to tumors and the development of novel cellular therapeutic and other immunological interventions including CD8+ memory T cells, cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells, CAR T cells and other genetically engineered cellular and biological therapies.
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