There is a GMP facility for conduction of phase III clinical trials available. The structural up-grade of this facility has limited the number of patients recruited.

The microarray device at our disposal uses Affymetrix GeneChip® technology.

A Luminex flow cytometer is available to our lab. It is used, among other things, to quantify the TNFalpha and IFNgamma secretion in a study on antigen recognition.

There is a two-photon intravital microscope available in the laboratory. It was used, among other things, to analyze the infiltration and destruction of solid tumors by CTLs.

The FACS analyzer avaiable to the lab is used, among other things, to assess protein expression of tumor antigens or soluble proteins.

There is a Luminex flow cytometer available in the lab. It is used, among other things, for assaying of cytokines in B-CLL patients treated with Apo-DC +/- GM-CSF.

The MRI facility available in the laboratory is used, among other things, to image vaccines.

In our lab we have a two-photon microscope. For instance, cell death was assessed in the viable epidermis by non-invasive near infrared two-photon microscopy following micro-particle bombardment of murine skin.

This platform with its state-of-the-art mass spectrometry facilities is led by Mann (P33). To enhance the platform, two additional groups were recruited as Third Parties: P114 Edwin Lasonder in Nijmegen (NL), and P113 Juri Rappsilber in Edinburgh (GB). The mass spectrometer has been used, for instance, to identify and quantify chemokine dependent tyrosine phosphorylation events. Furthermore, the success of SILAC labelling was analysed using the mass spectrometer.

Our laboratory has an Amaxa electroporator at its disposal. The electroporator is used, among other things, for the transfection of immature DCs with different constructs encoding for the oncogene Her-2/neu and as control PSA.

This FACS analyser that is available to us is used, e.g., for the analysis of dendritic cells.

We have expertise in DNA vaccination with the gene-gun available to us to directly transfect skin DC in vivo either with expression plasmids or siRNA plasmids to knockdown target genes and follow the effect on the resulting T cell response.

This gene gun was used for the delivery of vectors engineered to express distinct chemokines at the local skin site of mice.

A confocal microscope is available in our laboratory.

In our institute, we have a 9-colour FACS cell sorter our disposal. It is used, e.g., for the analysis of various DC populations.

Our laboratory has an electroporator at its disposal. It is used for instance for RNA electroporation into DC.

We have access to and experience with using a linear ion trap / Fourier Transform (LTQ-FT) hybrid mass spectrometer. For example, we use it to analyse purified tryptic peptides.

Our laboratory has a FACS Canto II (Manufacturer: BD Biosciences - URL: http://www.bdbiosciences.com/features/products/display_product.php?keyID=594) at its disposal. For instance, we used multimers kindly provided by Pierre Coulie (Brussels) together with surface markers (such as CD8, CD4, CD3, CD45RA, CCR7, CD25, CD27, CD137, CD127) in different 8-color panels on this FACSCanto II.

Our lab has an MRI scanner at its disposal. We use it, e.g., to track dendritic cells in melanoma patients for monitoring of cellular therapy.

Our laboratory has an electroporator at its disposal. It was used, e.g., for an assessment whether functional activation of human monocyte-derived DCs can be achieved by electroporation of an activation signal in the form of double-stranded (ds) RNA and whether simultaneous electroporation of the dsRNA with tumor antigen encoding mRNA can lead to the induction of a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) response.