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Cancer Vaccine Immune Response is Studied

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

A Stanford (Calif.) University study published in PLoS Medicine this week describes a way to measure immune response to an experimental melanoma vaccine.

The technique involves monitoring how individual immune cells isolated from a patient's blood respond to the vaccine by stimulating the cells on a biological chip and looking at a range of compounds they secrete.

Researchers said the most surprising finding was the wide range of responses seen in patients' cells. Although the numbers were small -- only 10 patients who had been enrolled in a trial of vaccination against melanoma -- the authors were able to pick out patterns of responses by the cells that determined how the patient responded clinically to the vaccine.

Tumor vaccination against melanoma is being investigated and several vaccines are being assessed. Unlike vaccinations against infectious diseases however, different people respond very differently to such vaccines. Scientists are not able to predict who will respond.

The scientists said the technique being studied at Stanford University might provide a better way of monitoring response to treatment.

Source: United Press International

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