Persistence of vaccine-induced immune responses, not the initial magnitude, best correlates with protective antitumor immunity. In mice, oligonucleotide aptamer-targeted siRNA inhibition of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activity in activated CD8+ T cells promotes their differentiation into functionally competent memory cells leading to enhanced antitumor immunity, a protective effect sup...

Primary tumor cells create favorable microenvironments in secondary organs, termed pre-metastatic niches, that promote the formation of metastases. Using immune competent syngenic breast cancer mouse models, we have recently demonstrated that factors secreted by hypoxic tumor cells condition pre-metastatic niches by recruiting CD11b+/Ly6Cmed/Ly6G+ myeloid cells and suppressing natural killer ce...

A parametric model of tumor response to combination therapy in the presence of an immune system is described. Synergistic mechanisms which induce tumor regression are simulated with a coupled set of equations. The simulations are first compared to tumor history data obtained with a SCID mouse model to determine key parameters; predictions are then made for an immune-competent animal. The minimu...

Understanding the immune correlates of non-progressive HIV infection is utmost important in planning immune protection strategies like vaccine and also efficient immune therapies. HIV infected Long term Non Progressors (LTNPs) maintain CD4 counts for more than 7-10 years of HIV infection and may or may not have detectable viral load whereas the elite controllers (ECs) limit the viral load below...

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a clinical condition in the neonate, resulting from oxygen deprivation around the time of birth. HIE affects 1-5/1000 live births worldwide and is associated with the development of neurological deficits, including cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and cognitive disabilities. Even though the brain is considered as an immune-privileged site, it has innate and ada...

This paper reviews and assesses the analogy between the human immune system and network intrusion detection systems. The promising results from a growing number of proposed computer immune models for intrusion detection motivate this work. The paper begins by briefly introducing existing intrusion detection systems (IDS’s). A set of general requirements for network-based IDS’s and the design go...

Pathogenic fungi cause a wide range of syndromes in immune-competent and immune-compromised individuals, with life-threatening disease primarily seen in humans with HIV/AIDS and in patients receiving immunosuppressive therapies for cancer, autoimmunity, and end-organ failure. The discovery that specific primary immune deficiencies manifest with fungal infections and the development of animal mo...