Development and Preclinical Testing of Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Optimizing the In Situ Tumor Vaccine Effect of Radiation Therapy

This project addresses a significant problem in oncology – to recruit immune cells to tumors and activate these cells to attack the tumor. The approach is to develop an in situ vaccine treatment regimen that can be employed against any type of cancer in any location for the purpose of enhancing tumor antigen presentation and stimulating an effective, adaptive, anti-tumor immune response to eradicate metastatic disease. This is important to increase response rates to immunotherapies, and to prolong survival with cancer.

In situ tumor vaccination is a therapeutic strategy that seeks to convert a patient’s own tumor into a nidus for presentation of tumor-specific antigens in a way that will stimulate and diversify an anti-tumor T cell response.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:

• Zachary Morris
  Assistant Professor of Human Oncology

CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:

• Shaoqin Sarah Gong
  Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery