The goal of the Drake laboratory is to understand the T cell response to evolving tumors at a cellular and genetic level, and to use this information to develop integrated immunotherapy strategies for patients with cancer.

Our laboratory has developed a novel transgenic model of prostate cancer, in which a unique antigen (hemagglutinin) is expressed exclusively in the prostate gland and in prostate tumors. Using these animals, we showed that prostate-specific CD4 cells develop antigen-specific tolerance in vitro. In related experiments, we performed microarray analysis of in vivo tolerized HA-specific T cells, and showed that these cells express the cell surface marker Lag-3. Blocking Lag-3 in vivo has profound effects on regulatory T cell function – we are currently investigating the function of Lag-3 in both tumor and self antigen specific tolerance. In addition, our microarray analyses revealed a number of additional cell surface markers that are potentially important in Treg function, we are in the process of studying a number of these molecules using both genetic and cellular approaches.

Drake CG, Jaffee EM, Pardoll DM. (2006) Mechanisms of immune evasion by tumors. Adv. Immunol. 98: 3456-3464 [PubMed]

Zhou G, Drake CG, Levitsky H. (2006) Amplification of tumor-specific regulatory T cells following therapeutic cancer vaccines. Blood 9 (2): 123-137 [PubMed]

Drake CG, Higgins AD, Mihalyo MA, Huang CT, Kelleher E, Ravi S, Hipkiss EL, Kennedy EP, Long M, McGary PW, Coryell L, Nelson WG, Pardoll DM, Adler AJ. (2006) Androgen ablation mitigates tolerance to a prostate/prostate cancer-restricted antigen. Cancer Cell 8 (3): 131-138 [PubMed]

Safford M, Collins S, Lutz MA, Allen A, Huang CT, Kowalski J, Blackford A, Horton MR, Drake C, Schwartz RH, Powell JD. (2005) Egr-2 and Egr-3 are negative regulators of T cell activation. Nat. Immunol. In Press [PubMed]

Huang CT, Workman CJ, Flies D, Pan, X, Marson AL, Zhou, G, Hipkiss, E, Ravi S, Kowalski J, Levitsky HI, Workman CJ, Powell JD, Pardoll DM,Drake, CG and Vignali DAA. (2004) Role of LAG-3 in Regulatory T Cells. Immunity 97: 3960-3965 [PubMed]

Drake CG, Rozzo SJ, Vyse TJ, Palmer E, Kotzin BL. (1994) Genetic contributions to lupus-like disease in (NZB x NZW)F1 mice. Immunol. Rev. 201:637-645 [PubMed]