Samantha Zottnick

← Zurück zu Team - Ehemalige Labormitglieder

Analysis of factors that facilitate trafficking of vaccination-induced T cells to tumor sites

Human papillomaviruses can cause different malignancies such as anogenital as well as head and neck cancer. In the search for a therapeutic HPV vaccine, promising preclinical data often fail to translate to a clinical setting. One of the major hurdles of therapeutic vaccination is to target the induced antigen-specific T cells to the tumor site. This is in part due to complex tissue-specific homing signals that T cells need to receive and recognize in order to migrate to the tumor site, and in part to the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. In this project, an orthotopic HPV16 tumor model in the genital mucosa was established in a mouse model expressing human MHC classes I and II. This model was then used to examine how vaccination-induced, HPV16-specific T cells can be attracted to the tumor site. Tested approaches included mucosal vaccination routes and application of immunomodulatory substances in “prime-pull” schemes.