Immunotherapy and Immune Responses

Dendritic cells are the sentinels of the immune system, constantly sampling their environment and deciding whether to trigger an attack or maintain tolerance — a distinction that proves critical in diseases ranging from autoimmunity to cancer. Researchers in this area study how dendritic cells capture and present antigens to T cells, how different dendritic cell subsets specialize in tasks like cross-presentation of tumor antigens, and how adjuvants can be used to sharpen or redirect these responses in vaccines and immunotherapies. One central challenge is understanding why tumors so often evade immune recognition despite harboring targetable antigens, and how to reliably tip dendritic cells from a tolerogenic state toward one that licenses cytotoxic T cell killing. Active work is focused on engineering dendritic cell-based vaccines, identifying the molecular cues that govern antigen cross-presentation, and translating these mechanisms into durable clinical responses in cancer patients.

Works

136,617

Total citations

3,798,259

Keywords

Dendritic CellsImmunityCancer ImmunotherapyAntigen PresentationTumor AntigenVaccine Adjuvants