Immunology-based cancer gene therapy

Japanese

Division of Cell Therapy

(Leader: Masatoshi TAGAWA, MD, PhD)

Summary of research:

We demonstrated potent anti-tumor effects of adenoviruses that preferentially replicated within tumors cells and released the progeny, which resulted in massive tumor destruction. We also analyzed biological properties of dendritic cells and found that several molecules expressed on the cells played crucial roles in antigen capture. Activated dendritic cells subsequently secrets a number of cytokines that induced systemic and protective immunity. Coordinate linkage between efficient tumor destruction and subsequent uptake of putative tumor antigens released are our research goal to develop therapeutic strategy for cancer.

Keywords:

Gene and cell therapy for cancer, Adenovirus and retrovirus vectors, Clinical development, Cytokine research

Recent main publications:

• Tada Y et al. J Immunol 2002; 169: 2241-2245.
• Wang Y-Q et al. Int J Cancer 2003; 105: 820-824.
• Yu L et al. Eur J Cancer, 2004; 1787-1794.
• Ma G et al. Cancer Gene Ther in press.