
New approach to anti-cancer vaccines
Dendritic cells (DCs) are a special population of cells within the immune system. A team headed by Prof. Lea Eisenbach of the Department of Immunology recently used genetic techniques to edit out part of the native DC surface, replacing it with a peptide sequence based on melanoma antigens. When administered into cancer bearing mice, these customized immune cells were able to inhibit tumor growth, and improve mouse survival. This method could potentially be applied to many different tumor types.