Cancer Vaccine Laboratory - LICR Melbourne-Austin Branch

LICR MELBOURNE-AUSTIN BRANCH

Research > Cancer Vaccine Lab

Cancer Vaccine Laboratory

The Cancer Vaccine Program integrates clinical and laboratory teams in order to better understand immune responses against cancer and to develop new cancer therapies based on these understandings.

Three research streams have been developed in order to achieve this:

(i) Cancer antigens- with a focus on NY-ESO-1,
(ii) Dendritic Cell (DC) biology - exploring the regulators of DC function including antigen uptake, migration, cytokine secretion, antigen cross-presentation, T cell stimulation and
(iii) Analysing immune responses that arise spontaneously and in vaccine recipients.

The program has been particularly interested in malignant melanoma as a disease for the development of these cancer vaccines. We have collected clinical data from our Phase I and Phase I/II studies, and characterised tumour antigen expression and also patient immunological profiles. Using gene arrays, we have identified molecules which are associated with different clinical outcomes in melanoma patients and we are evaluating the key molecular pathways in these human tumours. We are also assessing spontaneous and vaccine-induced immune responses against melanoma and have a particular interest in developing methods for targeting melanoma stem cells.

Publications

1. Robson, N.C., McAlpine, T., Knights, A.J., Schnurr, M., Shin, A., Chen, W., Maraskovsky, E., and Cebon, J., Processing and cross presentation of individual HLA-A, -B or -C epitopes from NY-ESO-1 or a HLA-A epitope for Melan-A differ according to the mode of antigen delivery. Blood, 2010.

2. Klein, O., Ebert, L.M., Nicholaou, T., Browning, J., Russell, S.E., Zuber, M., Jackson, H.M., Dimopoulos, N., Tan, B.S., Hoos, A., Luescher, I.F., Davis, I.D., Chen, W., and Cebon, J., Melan-A-specific cytotoxic T cells are associated with tumor regression and autoimmunity following treatment with anti-CTLA-4. Clin Cancer Res, 2009. 15(7): p. 2507-13.

3. Nicholaou, T., Ebert, L.M., Davis, I.D., McArthur, G.A., Jackson, H., Dimopoulos, N., Tan, B., Maraskovsky, E., Miloradovic, L., Hopkins, W., Pan, L., Venhaus, R., Hoffman, E.W., Chen, W., and Cebon, J., Regulatory T-Cell-Mediated Attenuation of T-Cell Responses to the NY-ESO-1 ISCOMATRIX Vaccine in Patients with Advanced Malignant Melanoma. Clin Cancer Res, 2009. 15(6): p. 2166-2173.

4. Robson, N.C., Wei, H., McAlpine, T., Kirkpatrick, N., Cebon, J., and Maraskovsky, E., Activin-A attenuates several human natural killer cell functions. Blood, 2009. 113(14): p. 3218-25.

5. Gedye, C., Quirk, J., Browning, J., Svobodova, S., John, T., Sluka, P., Dunbar, P.R., Corbeil, D., Cebon, J., and Davis, I.D., Cancer/testis antigens can be immunological targets in clonogenic CD133(+) melanoma cells. Cancer Immunol Immunother, 2009. 58(10): p. 1635-46.

6. Nicholaou.T , Chen, W., Davis, I.D., Jackson, H.M., Dimopoulos, N., Barrow, C., Browning, J., Macgregor, D., Williams D., Hopkins, W., Maraskovsky, E., Venhaus R., Pan, L., Hoffman, E.W., Old, L.J. , and Cebon, J.. Immunoediting and persistence of antigen-specific immunity in patients who have previously been vaccinated with NY-ESO-1 protein formulated in ISCOMATRIX. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 60(11): p. 1625-37 2011.

7. Svobodova, S. , Browning, J. , Macgregor, D., Pollara, G. , Scolyer, R.A., Murali, R., Thompson, J.F., Deb, S., Azad, A., Davis, I.D., and Cebon, J.S.. Cancer-testis antigen expression in primary cutaneous melanoma has independent prognostic value comparable to that of Breslow thickness, ulceration and mitotic rate. Eur J Cancer. 47(3): p. 460-9 2011.

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Research Links

	Overview
	Tumour Targeting Laboratory
	Cancer Immunobiology Laboratory
	T Cell Laboratory
	Uro-Oncology Laboratory
	Oncogenic Transcription Laboratory
	Joint Austin Ludwig Oncology Unit
	Centre for PET
	Key Technologies

Cancer Vaccine Lab Staff

Laboratory Head

Prof Jonathan Cebon
Email

Staff Directory

Jonathan Cebon - Laboratory Head
Rodica Stan - Research Associate
Eugene Maraskovsky - Honorary Fellow
Andreas Behren - Postdoctoral Fellow
Ashley Knights - Postdoctoral Fellow
Aparna Jayachandran - Postdoctoral Fellow
Laura Vella - Postdoctoral Fellow
Katherine Woods - Postdoctoral Fellow
Tom John - Senior Clinical Research Fellow
Claudia Freyer- Research Scientist
Florina Lo - Research Assistant
Christopher Hudson - Research Assistant
Anupama Pasam- Research Assistant
Marzena Walkiewicz - Research Assistant
Matthew Anaka - Ph.D. Student
Gabriela Segal - Ph.D. Student
Pierre-Alain Thiebaut - Visiting Student

Of Note

Grants

Jonathan Cebon
Cancer Council of Victoria Project Grant: 2010-2012
Melanoma Research Alliance Team Award 2008-2012
NH&MRC Practitioner Fellowship 2008-2012
NH&MRC Project Grant 2011-2013

Tom John
Victorian Cancer Agency Research Fellowship 2011-2012

Andreas Behren
Cure Cancer Australia Foundation Research Fellowship 2012-2013