Immunology- RPCI - frozen

Welcome and thank you for your interest in the Immunology Training Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The program offers a highly interactive, multidisciplinary course of study leading to a doctoral degree that prepares students for successful careers as independent investigators in cellular, molecular, and tumor immunology. Students are exposed to contemporary research problems in basic and tumor immunology and, at the same time are given a strong background in cancer biology. The program's setting within a world-class comprehensive cancer center offers students the invaluable opportunity to become involved in translational research that brings investigator-initiated approaches for treating cancer into a clinical setting.

The Department is the recipient of a unique National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute sponsored pre-doctoral fellowship program in Translational Tumor Immunology, which provides funds for student stipends and travel.

The history of Immunology at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute is a long and illustrious one, including the first scientific observation implicating immune responses against malignancies (1904), pioneering use of antibodies for cancer treatment (1954), demonstration of the anti-tumor immunomodulatory effects of chemotherapy (1960), and defining the immunomodulatory mechanisms of fever range hyperthermia (1998). The work of the Department is now focused on the increasingly complex interactions between tumors and the immune system.

Program Overview

The Department of Immunology has ongoing research programs in many aspects of immunology with an emphasis on understanding why immune responses are generally ineffective against malignant cells in cancer patients, directly coupled with efforts to therapeutically elicit more potent anti-tumor immunity. This is being done through collaborative research programs that are grouped into 4 major areas of focus:

1. Identifying the molecular mechanisms by which tumor cells become resistant to immune recognition and killing;
2. Characterizing the molecular and cellular elements of the tumor microenvironment that influence tumor cell growth and immune control;
3. Designing of new strategies to enhance active specific immunotherapy;
4. Translation of novel laboratory findings into investigator-initiated clinical trials.

Studies indicate that tumor-immune system interactions may yield results ranging from significant cancer suppression to actual facilitation of tumor growth and spread. Lack of an integrated understanding of these interactions is a significant barrier to developing effective immune-based approaches. However, this complexity also suggests that there are many novel, immune-based strategies to combat human malignancies in addition to “traditional” elicitation of anti-tumor immunity. The goal of the Department’s research to understand and utilize the ability of the immune system to prevent, diagnose and treat human cancers. The scientific approach to achieve this goal is to:

1. Characterize the specific interactions between tumor and immune cells that lead to tumor recognition and tumor rejection (or failure to do so),
2. Define the broader host-tumor immune interactions that modulate tumor cell biology and the anti-cancer immune response,
3. Translate this understanding to clinical application to discover the mechanistic underpinnings of tumor-immune system interactions.

Research in the Department of Immunology runs the complete gamut from basic mechanisms of immune responses, through translational development of novel therapies, to clinical trials.