The Center for Immuno-Oncology (CIO) Translational Research area's strategic plan focuses on the development of novel vaccines for human carcinomas, not only as monotherapies, but more importantly in combination with other immune-mediating modalities, and other conventional or experimental therapies, as part of an immune-oncology programmatic effort.

Overview. The Immunotherapeutics Section is involved in the development of novel recombinant vaccines, and vaccine combinatorial therapies. We study both mechanistically and operationally how certain radiation modalities, chemotherapy agents, small molecule targeted therapies, and immune modulators a) alter the tumor to become an immunostimulatory milieu, or b) modulate the tumor microenvironment to create a more immunopermissive hub, to enhance vaccine efficacy. Our team has worked independently and collaboratively with the CIO on the design, engineering, and development of recombinant poxvirus and yeast-based cancer vaccine platforms. The poxviral vector-based vaccines contain transgenes for tumor antigens and for multiple synergistic costimulatory molecules.

Research Focus. Immune consequences of cancer therapy include both direct effects on tumor cells and modulation of the immune system. My laboratory has focused on two areas: immunogenic modulation and immune subset conditioning. Immunogenic modulation describes the mechanism of how anticancer therapies alter the biology of the surviving tumor cells to render them more sensitive to immune mediated killing. Immunogenic modulation encompasses a spectrum of molecular alterations in the biology of the cancer cell that independently or collectively make the tumor more amenable to cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)‒mediated destruction. Immune subset conditioning describes how anticancer therapies mediate the peripheral and/or intratumoral reduction of negative regulatory elements into a more immune-permissive environment for vaccine immunotherapy. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of these areas provide a rationale for the use of immunotherapy in combination with radiation, chemotherapy, small molecule inhibitors, and immune modulators. For a list of publications from the Immunotherapeutics Section, see Dr. Hodge's Full PubMed Summary.