From homemaker and mother to medical scholar and pioneer, her life s work is an inspiration to any who seek to achieve the impossible. The Board of Trustees has established a fund in memory of Helen and donations can be made through our national headquarters. The Institute will also organize a memorial service in the coming months to celebrate Helen s life and accomplishments. In a recent publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , a team including CRI-funded scientists Drs. Madhav Dhodapkar, Ralph Steinman and Nina Bhardwaj, all from The Rockefeller University in New York, report, for the first time ever, a measured improvement in the qualitative aspects of the function of killer T cells in humans after vaccination with antigen-bearing mature dendritic cells.
Dendritic cells are the professional antigen-presenting cells of the immune system.
They have built on these findings by carrying out the first reported qualitative analysis of immune responses in humans after dendritic cell vaccination. In this paper, they confirm that an injection of antigen-pulsed mature dendritic cells into humans elicited better immune responses as shown by the increased quantity and improved quality of the induced T cells. In addition, they observed that following the first injection with a booster dose not only elicited a speedier response, but the induced killer T cells were of a functionally superior quality. Although this study was conducted on only seven patients, the potential impact of this work on cancer immunotherapy is significant and warrants further research aimed at exploring the potential of dendritic cell immunization. The award is a tribute to his visionary philanthropic commitment to equality, justice, health, education and the arts, as well as his more than twenty years of service within the League, including his successful three-year term as the its National Chair.