Patent ID: 7927580

Claim:
A method for identifying new immunomodulatory chemical entities (NICE) and characterizing the NICE as immunostimulatory or immunosuppressive comprising: a. reacting a candidate NICE with a Tat SH3 binding domain wherein said Tat SH3 binding domain is bound to a solid phase to identify candidate NICE that bind to said Tat SH3; b. identifying said candidate NICE bound to said Tat SH3; c. adding said identified candidate NICE to a culture of purified peripheral blood monocytes; d. adding Tat having an SH3 binding domain to said peripheral blood monocytes and candidate NICE to form a test culture; e. incubating said test culture to allow said monocytes to differentiate into dendritic cells (DC) or regulatory macrophages (AReg); f. removing said differentiated cells from said test culture; g. quantifying the numbers of DCs and AReg in the differentiated cell population; and h. determining the relative numbers of DCs and AReg in the differentiated cell population; wherein greater numbers of DCs compared to AReg identifies an immunosuppressive NICE and greater numbers of ARegs compared to DCs identifies an immunostimulatory NICE.