Jing Pan, PhD

My primary research interest is in chemoprevention and immune-prevention of lung cancer with either natural compound or synthetic peptides. Cancer immune-prevention is currently undergoing exponential growth. Peptide vaccination against tumor-associated antigen as a means of treating cancer patients or preventing the development of tumors in high-risk individuals is currently an area of intense research. Peptide vaccines can elicit memory T cells that remain in lymph nodes until exposed to the target antigen. My goal is to develop effective peptide vaccines to prevent cancer development and progression. We currently employed longer peptides with predicted binding affinity to MHC class II. Using this approach, we successfully developed a series of multipeptide multivalent vaccine that elicited robust Th1 immune responses and effectively blocked the development of lung cancers in multiple mouse models.