Patent ID: 6977073

Claim:
A method of stimulating a disease-specific immune response, the method comprising infusing an immunogenic cell composition capable of stimulating a disease-specific immune response into a patient whereby a disease-specific immune response is initiated, the immunogenic cell composition being prepared by: a. isolating hematopoietic stem cells from a donor; b. incubating the stem cells in a cell culture medium comprising GM-CSF, SCF and IL-4, whereby the stem cells are directed to develop into programmable antigen presenting cells (pAPCs); c. incubating the pAPCs in an incubation vessel coated with human γ-globulin, whereby the pAPCs become adherent; d. removing non-adherent cells from the incubation vessel; e. further incubating the adherent pAPCs in a cell culture medium comprising autologous human plasma and a fixed staphylococcus aureus solution; f. mixing the pAPCs with cellular material derived from cells positive for the disease, the cellular material selected from the group consisting of cell lysate, cell RNA, cell poly A+RNA, cDNA derived from cell RNA, and cDNA derived from cell RNA incorporated into an expression vector; g. incubating the pAPCs with the cellular material, whereby loaded pAPCs are produced; and h. incubating the pAPCs with TNF-a after the pAPCs have been loaded, whereby disease-specific programmed super antigen presenting cells (pSAPCs) capable of stimulating an immune response to the disease are produced.