Generating Tumour-Specific Dendritic Cells for Cancer Therapy

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/454393

Funding Status
Closed

Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the .

Funded Activity Summary

Therapies using the immune system are showing promise for cancer treatment, particularly for melanoma, but complete durable responses are few and improvements are needed. We believe that such immunotherapies, in their current form, fail to sufficiently mimic a natural immune reaction to disease, and therefore fall short of effectively controling cancer. In particular, an alarm (danger signal) is not produced within tumour as it would be when the body is challenged by infectious agents. Such danger signals are critical for the immune system to respond effectively and for white blood cells of the immune system to find their way to the disease organism and eliminate it. The strongest danger signals are produced by a type of white blood cell known as a dendritic cell (DC). These cells detect infectious agents and produce biochemical alarm molecules that alert the entire immune system to the danger resulting in powerful action against the disease. However, tumours are really just a part of our own body and no danger signal is produced. It is our aim to use genetic modification to make DC see tumours as a threat and produce danger signals. These gene-modified DC either alone, or in combination with other immunotherapies, may lead to destruction of tumours.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2007

End Date: 01-01-2009

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $288,210.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Tumour Immunology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Cellular immunity | Dendritic cells | Inflammatory mediators | Treatment with dendritic cells | Tumour immunotherapy

Related Links