A team from the University Clinic and the research center Applied Medicine (CIMA) of the University of Navarra plans to carry out vaccination trials with dendritic cells in cancer patients with hepatocarcinoma (in the liver), melanoma and renal carcinoma in mid-2007. In this way, the previous clinical programs of study will continue once the approval final has been obtained from the relevant regional and state bodies.

This was announced by Ignacio Melero, researcher of the University of Navarra, on the occasion of an International Symposium on Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy held by the Pamplona-based campus under the auspices of the Ramón Areces Foundation. In total, 140 experts from countries such as the UK, USA, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands will discuss the latest advances in this field.

"Vaccination consists of cultivating this subject of cells and artificially supplying them with antigens (substances that provoke an immune response) from the tumor. In this way, they increase the issue of T lymphocytes that act against the tumor and make them acquire the molecular machinery necessary to kill the target tumor cell (their goal)," explained Dr. Melero.

Synergy with conventional anticancer therapies

According to him, this is one of the strategies of cancer immunotherapy, which has the advantage of "making it possible to selectively detect and eliminate cells or groups of malignant cells that could be disseminated throughout the body and potentially maintain this activity for long periods of time.

Immunotherapy," added Dr. Melero, "not only does it not conflict with conventional therapies (surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy), but in several examples it has synergistic effects and significantly improves the result of these. In this sense, the expert from the University of Navarra commented that there are very effective treatment guidelines in animal models: "Results have already been obtained in melanoma and lymphoma, and we are currently working intensively on renal, prostate and digestive carcinoma".

Ignacio Melero will speak at the International Symposium on Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy. Among other scientists, Eli Gilboa, from the University of Miami (USA) and Carl Figdor, from the Nijmegen Center for Molecular Sciences (The Netherlands), will present their research on vaccination with dendritic cells.

research center Freda Stevenson, from the University of Southampton (UK), will explain immunization against lymphoma using gene vaccination techniques, while Stanley Riddell, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (USA), will focus on immunotherapy of leukemias.