Area of Research: Gene Therapy for Lymphoma & Leukemia
Focus: Immune-mediated Gene Therapy & Cancer Vaccines

For years it has been known that the immune system could be harnessed to kill tumor cells, however, difficulties in routinely applying this as a practical cancer therapy have prevented widespread adoption of the approaches that work well in laboratory mice. However, recent advances in gene transfer therapy promise to make this treatment a reality. This program will test whether the immune system's T cells can be altered genetically so that they become "guided missiles". In this project advanced gene transfer technology will be used to permanently modify the immune system by insetting a tracking system into the T cells so that T cells are engineered to kill tumor cells specifically. This approach will be first tested in adults with leukemia that is resistant to currently available chemotherapy.

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