The Institute has several labs that are investigating cancer to both understand how this disease functions and how it can best be fought. A deeper understanding of what causes cells to become cancerous could be a significant aide in discovering therapies to prevent cancer. Our research laboratories are finding more effective ways to focus the immune system's natural attack cells, killer T cells, to create immunotherapies and vaccinations against specific cancer types.

BREAKTHROUGHS

Tumor Suppressor
La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology researchers studying an enzyme believed to play a role in allergy onset, instead have discovered its previously unknown role as a tumor suppressor that may be important in myeloproliferative diseases and some types of lymphoma and leukemia. Myeloproliferative diseases are a group of disorders characterized by an overproduction of blood cells by the bone marrow and include chronic myeloid leukemia.  Lymphoma and leukemia are cancers of the blood. Toshiaki Kawakami, M.D., Ph.D., led the research team.

RESEARCHERS AND THEIR LABS

Michael Croft, Ph.D. and his laboratory work on understanding how proteins that are expressed on the surface of T cells affect the cell’s ability to live, to survive, and not to undergo apoptosis, which is the process of cell death. Michael Croft, Ph.D. is focused on increasing the growth and survival of T cells to give the body a fighting chance against cancer.  “The concept is that all diseases are controlled by T cells,” said Croft.  “My lab works on the molecules that regulate T cells – what makes them work better or work worse.”

Don Newmeyer, Ph.D. and his laboratory are examining how mitochondria--the "energy factory" in the cell-- play a critical role in the apoptotic cell death program. The importance of this research is in understanding how these cells can be turned on and off, suggesting new approaches for the treatment of diseases that involve the inappropriate death or survival of certain types of cells. 

 Stephen Schoenberger, Ph.D, and his team are focusing their efforts on understanding the way in which the immune system organizes an effective attack in the body. There are two types of killer T cells that the immune system employs in the course of its defense of the body, CD8 and CD4. Schoenberger's laboratory has shown that it is necessary for the body to engage both of these cells types in order to properly attack a bodily invasion and to ensure a proper immune memory response. Immune memory is the way in which the body "remembers" previous infections so that on future occurrences of an illness it can mount a fast, efficient response. This discovery could be a key to understanding why the body sometimes fails to destroy a tumor with an immune attack.