Development of a Vaccine for the Treatment and/or Prevention of Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin malignancy in the United States. With the exception of lung cancer, it is the leading cause of death in men in the country. By age 80, the risk of developing prostate cancer is estimated to be 1 in 7. Despiteincreased public awareness, regular check-ups, and improved therapeutic interventions greater than 31,000 American men will die from prostate cancer during calendar year 2000. The current proposal seeks to develop a new form of immunotherapy usingdendritic cell (DC) based DNA vaccines to combat this serious disease. During Phase I, DC were isolated and transfected with 3 genes believed important in cytotoxic T cell (TC) killing of prostate cancer cells. The transfected DC remained functional andfurther enhanced TC proliferation rates by 40-50% versus controls. In addition, initial results showed that TC which had been cultured with the transfected DC caused 16-40% cytotoxicity in target prostate tumor cells. Phase II research will continue tolay the groundwork for an improved DNA vaccine against prostate cancer. Prostate tumors will be established in SCID mice and animal experiments will be performed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the proposed immunotherapeutic approach.