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Malignant melanoma is the most virulent form of skin cancer. The incidence of melanoma has increased over the past 15 years more than any other malignant tumor. Interestingly, melanoma is the cancer that has been shown to be the most amenable to immune-based therapy with several immune treatments currently approved for the treatment of patients with melanoma. The Serody laboratory has investigated the role of chemokine ligands and their receptors in the immune response to melanoma. We have shown that melanoma cells expressing chemokine ligands generate a significant immune response that can control metastatic tumor growth in animal models. Additionally, we have found that vaccine approaches using Venezuelan equine encephalitis replicon particles expressing tumor antigens can lead to tumor regression in animal models. Currently we are evaluating combined immune modulating therapies including viral vaccine platforms with mechanisms to block the immune suppression present in the tumor environment in the treatment of melanoma in animal models. The long-term goals for this work are to generate new clinical vaccine therapies for the treatment of melanoma.
Publications:
van Deventer HW, Wu QP, Bergstralh DT, Davis BK, O'Connor BP, Ting JP, Serody JS. C-Ch chemokine receptor 5 on pulmonary fibrocytes facilitates migration and promotes metastasis via matrix metalloproteinase 9. Am J Pathol 173(1): 253-264, 2008.
Petermann KB, Rozenberg GL, Zedek D, Groben P, McKinnon K, Buehler C, Kim WY, Shield JM, Penland S, Bear JE, Thomas NE, Serody JS, Sharpless NE. CD200 is induced by ERK and is a potential therapeutic target in melanoma. J Clin Invest 117(12): 3922-3929, 2007
Van Deventer HW, O'Connor W, Brickey WJ, Aris RM, Ting JP, Serody JS. C-C chemokine receptor 5 on stromal cells promotes pulmonary metastasis. Cancer Res 65(8): 3374-3379, 2005.
Sauer MG, Ericson ME, Weigel BJ, Herron MJ, Panoskaltsis-Mortari A, Kren BT, Levine BL, Serody JS, June CH, Taylor PA, Blazar BR. A novel system for simultaneous in vivo tracking and biological assessment of leukemia cells and ex vivo generated leukemia-reactive cytotoxic T cells. Cancer Res 64(11): 3914-3921, 2004.
Ng-Cashin J, Kuhns JJ, Burkett SE, Powderly JD, Craven RR, van Deventer HW, Kirby SL, Serody JS. Host absence of CCR5 potentiats dendritic cell vaccination. J Immunol 170(8): 4201-4208, 2003.
Van Deventer HW, Serody JS, McKinnon KP, Clements C, Brickey WJ, Ting JP. Transfection of macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha into B16F10 melanoma cells inhibits growth of pulmonary metastases but not subcutaneous tumors. J Immunol 169(3): 1634-1639, 2002.
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