Our laboratory is involved with tumor immunobiology with special interest in human melanoma. The laboratory is current focusing on the cellular and humoral responses to melanoma tumor cell vaccines. We completed Duke University's first gene therapy program utilizing autologous melanoma cells transduced with the gene for human gamma interferon. The serological and cellular studies indicated that patients made a significant and measurable response to immunization with these gene-modified tumor cells. We immunized 100 patients with autologous dendritic cells pulsed with either autologous tumor lysate or specific melanoma tumor peptides. The cell-mediated immune response to the vaccines was addressed in a serial fashion. At the present time, we are evaluating HLA identical donor stem cells in an effort to produce graft vs. tumor responses in patients with metastatic melanoma.
