Training in Cellular & Molecular Mechanisms of Tumor Rejection

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In the United States today there are as many 50-year olds as 5-year olds, and in 30 years there will be as many people over 80 as under 5 (www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbpvr.html). As the disease of old age, cancer will remain a great public health problem, if not become an epidemic. This extraordinary problem presents a great challenge to basic and applied biomedical research scientists to come up with extraordinary ideas to understand the disease and manage, cure or prevent it. The progress has been impressive in many scientific disciplines but a lot remains to be learned, discovered and applied. This work will be carried out by the new generation of biomedical scientists that we are now training in our laboratories. The overall goal of our training program is to train a cadre of young immunologists. PhDs and MD/PhDs. who will make it their mission to understand how to harness the immune system in the fight against cancer. Immunological solutions to cancer will lie in our ability to elicit effective, potent immune responses, with life long memory, against antigens that are not much different then self-molecules. This exciting field of research continues to provide challenges and opportunities for young scientists well trained in the newest paradigms in immunology. At the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine we have successfully trained talented investigators who have made significant impact in the field of tumor immunology. We propose to continue to recruit the best and the brightest into cancer immunology through the continuation of our training program in Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Tumor Rejection. The goals supported by this training grant are to provide students and fellows with courses, research projects, highly qualified mentors and financial resources to: 1. Elucidate the basic mechanisms of initiation of tumor-specific immunity; 2. Define the effector mechanisms in the anti-tumor immune response; and 3. Understand the requirements for establishment of long-term anti-tumor immune memory; 4. Elucidate specific features of the tumor microenvironment that affect anti-tumor immunity; 5. Elucidate the relationship between inflammation and cancer. We have been accomplishing these goals through well-planned and organized course activities, combined with program activities that promote substantive communication among the program faculty and trainees.