Clinical trials of DC-based immmunotherapy of melanoma patients
During the previous period we obtained data from our continued pilot clinical trials of DC-based immunotherapy of melanoma patients. After an initial cohort of patients treated with monocyte-derived DCs matured with inflammatory cytokines and subsequently electroporated with mRNA encoding 6 tumor-associated antigens, we persued this trial in a next cohort where DC-based vaccines were combined with low dose IFN-alfa (3 x 10e6 U per wk). In a significantly higher number of patients we observed vaccine-induced depigmentation and vitiligo. Further improvement and careful analysis of these patients is ongoing.
Melan-A/MART-1-specific CD4 T cells in melanoma patients: identification of new epitopes and ex vivo visualization of specific T cells by MHC class II tetramers.