Magne Henrik Olsen - new master student

Magne Henrik Olsen. Foto: Kristian Jensen

Magne is taking his masters in Human Biology, in the period August 2009 to June 2010. The name of the project is:" Design of tumor specific immunotherapies using dendritic cells", where Magne will take part in finding the best stimuli for maturing dendritic cell.

Therapeutic vaccinations of patients with malignant diseases are based on the stimulation of their own immune systems in order to get an anti-tumor response. Currently numerous trials using dendritic cell (DC) based vaccines are being carried out. DC are the most potent antigen presenting cells with the unique ability to initiate and maintain primary immune responses. They acquire antigens in the periphery and migrate to the lymph nodes where antigen specific T lymphocytes recognize the presented peptide antigens. In this pathway, the DC undergo distinct phenotypical and functional changes and develop from immature cells capable to take up antigens to mature cells able to process and present antigenic peptides.

DC vaccinations have been shown to be a safe procedure; however, an improvement of this method is still required, as only few clinical responses could be documented so far. The DC used for this purpose are usually generated from precursor cells in vitro using specific cytokines, as DC are a very rare cell population in peripheral blood. One main issue is the choice of an appropriate DC population for immunotherapy. The DC used today in immunotherapy have deficits in their migratory ability, and also their cytokine production need improvement.

The aim of the project is therefore to analyze different cytokine combinations and maturation stimuli during generation of DC concerning their phenotype (flow cytometry), cytokine production (ELISA) and T cell stimulatory capacity (proliferation/cytotoxicity assays).

Magne will specifically work with maturation stimuli at dendritic cells.
The project will take place at the Gade Institute/Broegelmann Research Laboratories. Supervisors are Dr Silke Appel and Dr. Arnt-Ove Hovden.