We are most interested in the development of an effective immunotherapy in animals that are infected and being treated with antiretroviral drugs to control disease. A developing area of interest is discerning the function of dendritic cells in disease.
Dendritic cells play a pivotal role in inducing immune responses to infection in vivo.
Dendritic cells can be cultured from precursor cells in blood using various cytokines, generating large numbers of cells which can be manipulated with antigens for vaccine purposes. We have recently shown that immature and mature dendritic cells express different chemokine receptors in vitro, but migrate with similar efficiency to lymph nodes in vivo. We believe that immature dendritic cells undergo spontaneous maturation following injection into monkeys, which allows them to follow a chemokine gradient into T areas of lymph nodes. We are currently studying delivery of viral antigens into cells for stimulation of T cells in vivo. For these studies we are using SIV-infected cells which are driven to apoptose via gamma irradiation, and then fed to dendritic cells as apoptotic bodies.