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Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Background imagery courtesy of Thermo Fisher Scientific. The original picture was captured by Dr. Rita Serda
T-cells on Alert
IMMUNOTHERAPY: A RICH HISTORY
2008
1984
1994
2002
2005
Dr. Pamela Ohashi,
Dr. Brad Nelson,
Dr. Réjean Lapointe
and Dr. Jonathan
Bramson found the
Canadian Cancer
Immunotherapy
Consortium.
Dr. Tak Mak
clones the T-cell
receptor.
Dr. Tak Mak
demonstrates
that CTLA4
(protein receptor)
is a key regulatory
checkpoint in the
immune system.
Dr. Pamela Ohashi
(above) and Dr. Linh
Nguyen demonstrate
that tumor-specific
T-cells exist and are
capable of mounting
a response against
tumors.
Dr. Pamela Ohashi,
Dr. Linh Nguyen
(above) and Patty Yen
travel to Dr. Steven
Rosenberg’s lab in
the U.S. to learn
techniques to grow
tumor-specific T-cells.
CANCER VACCINES
What is Immunotherapy?
The goal of cancer vaccines is to get T-cells to recognize
the presence of cancer and fight back.
Dr. Christopher Paige leads a laboratory where cancer
cells are genetically modified to make them more visible to
the immune system. The modified cancer cells are returned to
the body where they activate immune system T-cells, which
spread throughout the body killing both the modified cancer
cells and any other residual cancer cells that are present.
This is considered to be a therapeutic vaccine as it is
designed to be used after a cancer has appeared. This is a
different concept from vaccines that prevent something from
occurring in the first place, such as the vaccine against the
virus (HPV) that causes cervical cancer.
Other cancer research seeks to stimulate the immune
system by using a type of immune cell that helps spur T-cells
into action – the dendritic cell. Dendritic cells can be loaded
with cancer-specific substances that are recognized by the
immune system, triggering an anti-cancer immune response.
