Technologies for Human Cellular Immunology

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The research resource technical development component (TDC) will develop novel technologies for the rapid identification of T cell epitopes derived from category A-C viruses and for the analysis of antigen-specific T cells in human peripheral blood samples. The specific aims of the proposed research are: to develop technology for simultaneous investigation of many T-cell epitopes based on solid-phase arrays of MHC-peptide complexes; to develop assays for T cell epitope identification and antigen-specific T cell detection based on arrays of antigen-presenting cells; to develop novel proteomics-based approaches to functional characterization of antigen-specific T cells; to develop microarray and proteomics approaches to facile identification of MHC-binding peptides derived from category A-C viruses; to evaluate the utility of these methods towards the identification of T-cell antigens and T cells specific for category A-C viruses, and to compare these methods to present technologies and validate their use for continuing studies. The methods developed by this component will be evaluated in well-defined test systems identified by the Research Projects, and validated methods will be used by the Research Projects in the analysis of the human cellular immune response to vaccinia virus, hantavirus, and flavivirus infection and vaccination. We anticipate that the methods developed by this component will be broadly useful in the study of the human immune response to biodefense-related pathogens, and we have included plans for the dissemination and commercialization of validated technologies.