Dateline DFCI
Cancer vaccine center brings together faculty, technology to promote the study of human body's natural defenses
Left to right: Dana-Farber colleagues Jerome Ritz, Ellis Reinherz, and Glenn Dranoff, all MDs, are leading the new cancer vaccine center.
Tapping the recent surge in knowledge about the immune system's ability to fight infection and disease, Dana-Farber has launched a Cancer Vaccine Center to bring together staff and programs throughout the Institute with a shared purpose.
"The idea is to draw on faculty and resources from a variety of areas and disciplines, and take advantage of the different perspectives they offer on vaccine-related research," says center Director Ellis Reinherz, MD. Vaccines, one line of treatment against cancer, work by boosting the body's immune response to cancer cells. Although some encouraging results have emerged, questions remain about how to enhance the immune system's ability to destroy tumors. The center will use a translational approach, joining laboratory research with clinical studies of the latest therapies. "We now have a rich repository of ideas and approaches that can be developed and tested in patients," says Dana-Farber investigator Glenn Dranoff, MD, who will share the directorship with colleagues Reinherz and Jerome Ritz, MD. "The goal is to conduct well-conceived, welldesigned trials with a wide variety of patients, and to analyze treatment results with the most modern immunological tools to determine if vaccination is successful."