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Presenter: Dr. Min Luo (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA)
Topic: A STING-Activating Nanovaccine for Cancer Immunotherapy
Time: 10:00AM, April. 24th (Monday)
Location: Conference Room 910-308
Abstract
Generation of tumor-specific T cells is critically important for cancer immunotherapy. A major challenge in achieving a robust adaptive T cell response is the spatio-temporal orchestration of antigen cross-presentation in antigen presenting cells (APCs) with innate stimulation. Here we report a minimalist nanovaccine by a simple physical mixture of an antigen with a synthetic polymeric nanoparticle, PC7A NP, which generated strong T cell response with low systemic cytokine expression. By in vivo CTL assay and antibody detection, we found that PC7A NP was able to induce a robust antigen-specific CTL, Th1 and Th2 responses with comparable or better efficacy than several established adjuvants. Mechanistically, PC7A NP achieved efficient cytosolic delivery of tumor antigens to APCs in draining lymph nodes leading to increased surface presentation while simultaneously activating type I interferon-stimulated genes. To conclude, STING-activating minimalist nanovaccine offers a simple, safe and robust strategy in boosting anti-tumor immunity for cancer immunotherapy. The unique characteristics of PC7A NP also allow it to package microbial antigens as vaccines for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Biography
Dr. Min Luo is a Research Scientist at the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA. She received his B.S. degree in cell biology and genetics from College of Life Sciences, Peking University (China) in 2000. During her Ph.D. period in Peking University, she focused on the vaccine design of HIV-1 in Prof. Mingxiao Ding and Prof. Hongkui Deng’s lab. After her postdoctoral research fellow working at Peking University, she started her independent research career as Associate Professor at Shenzhen Center of Disease Control and Prevention since 2010. Since March 2013, she joined Prof. Jinming Gao’s lab as a research scientist in UTSW. Now her research interests focused on nanomedicine and cancer immunotherapy. So far, She has published 18 scientific articles, including in Nature Nanotech, Stem Cell, Cell Research, Angew Chem, Journal of Control Release. She intended the 13th Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology (SNIP) Conference at Salt Lake City in 2007.
Contact: Prof. Jian Chen