Claire Buchta |
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| Research Interests | |
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The Bishop lab studies lymphocyte activation. My project focuses on studying novel strategies to enhance the efficacy of vaccination. I am currently focusing on the roles played by specific types of lymphocytes in stimulating the immune response to vaccines. I am examining the optimal combination of stimuli to trigger multiple arms of the immune response to increase vaccine efficacy.
My main project centers on the development of a successful cellular vaccine. This approach utilizes manipulated immune cells as vaccine vehicles against cancer or infectious agents. In the general model of a cellular vaccine, antigen presenting cells are removed from a patient, activated against a particular target ex vivo, and reintroduced into the patient. I am focusing on using B lymphocytes as the antigen presenting cell used in a cellular vaccine. B cells have advantages in that they are abundant in peripheral blood and easily expanded and activated in vitro. I will investigate ways to exploit those strengths as I test hypotheses about approaches that may be useful in vaccine design. |
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| Publications | |
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VandenBush, T.J., Buchta , C.M., Claudio, J. and Bishop, G.A. Cutting Edge: Importance of IL-6 and cooperation between innate and adaptive immune receptors in cellular vaccination with B lymphocytes. J. Immunol., in press 2009.
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