Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

One of the major medical breakthroughs in human history is the eradication of life threatening diseases such as smallpox and rinderpest (a cattle disease). This was made possible by efficient vaccine development, which allowed our immune system to precisely remember and promptly react against these pathogens. Why are we not successful in eradicating all the diseases, including AIDS and cancer? Currently, several vaccination regimens fail because of inadequate knowledge on what makes our immune system remember the pathogen, the so-called memories. As a recipient of Vanier CGS, my goal is to increase our understanding of how the immune system can create and retain these memories. Using a mouse melanoma tumor model, my studies will focus on how two subsets of the immune system, CD4 and CD8 T cells critical to the defense against cancers and viral diseases, interact to provide an optimal immune response. I will attempt to address how different key molecules of CD4 T cells imprint cardinal features of CD8 T memory cells such as survival and ready-to-respond status by understanding downstream molecular signaling pathways and gene expression patterns. These studies will significantly advance current understanding of immunity to cancers, autoimmunity and chronic infections. Further, this knowledge will have a major impact on designing vaccines against intractable diseases, including cancers and chronic infections such as hepatitis and AIDS. Moreover in advanced tumors, vaccines developed using this knowledge may act synergistically with other cancer treatments such as irradiation, chemotherapy and microsurgery, minimizing their side effects and prolonging the lives of patients.