Minority Predoctorial Fellowship Program

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Being that cancer is the second leading cause of death among African Americans in the United States, I have a burning desire to perform cancer research, more specifically, tumor immunology. I am interested in developing cancer vaccines that can utilize the body's defenses to eliminate cancers. Very significant advances have been made with the use of cancer vaccines, but a large problem that has yet to be overcome is tumor-specific T-cells become non-aggressive towards the cancer cells, even when a vaccine is introduced. In order to bypass this obstacle of immune tolerance, we need to dissect the mechanisms involved in suppressing vaccine-induced immune responses in cancer patients. Therefore, the goal of this proposal is to utilize a clinically relevant mouse model of breast cancer to understand the mechanisms of immune tolerance. Once these mechanisms are understood, it should be possible to devise methods for circumventing tolerance to more effectively treat cancers with cancer specific vaccine. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]