LEUKAPHERESIS COLLECTION OF WBC?S FROM NORMALS AND PARTICIPANTS WITH CANCER

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The primary purpose of this study is to use leukapheresis to collect lymphocytes from participants with cancer and normal donors to use as standards for assays analyzing the efficacy of vaccines in the University of Virginia Human Immune Therapy Center clinical trials. Lymphocytes from normal donors and participants with cancer will be frozen in aliquots and stored in liquid nitrogen until use. Upon thawing, lymphocytes from normal donors and participants with cancer will be tested as standards along with the vaccine trials participants' specimens. The control lymphocytes will be stimulated with lysates or peptides derived from common viral pathogens such as cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and influenza virus (FLU). Since most individuals have been exposed to these pathogens, an immune response can be measured. If the lymphocytes are obtained at one time from a single source, then a similar response pattern should be seen each time these standards are run. The standards will be compared to themselves in subsequent assays over time, to generate a coefficient of variation, in order to validate the immune monitoring assays. The specimens from participants with cancer may also be screened for the presence of T cells that are reactive against new tumor antigens that are identified in the lab. Having samples from participants with different cancers would enable the HITC lab to examine differences in pre-existing T-cell responses to the newly identified antigens, and may aid in the design of new immunotherapeutic vaccines for different types of cancer. Differences in immune competency between the two populations, normal donors and participants with cancer, may also be assessed. For this analysis, magnitude of immune responses to common viral pathogens would be compared between the two study groups.