This interview is with Immunotherapy Insights editorial board member Dr Stéphanie McArdle. Immunotherapy Insights is an open access journal published by Libertas Academica. Editor in Chief Dr John Barrett has recently issued a call for papers.

What is the primary focus of your research?

The research is conducted in the van Geest Cancer Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University, School of Science and Technology. It focuses on the identification of new tumour associated proteins, pre-clinical and clinical studies in view of developing vaccines to treat patients with cancer and the identification of peptide epitopes associating with MHC class I and class II antigens.

What are the most exciting developments arising from current research in your area?

The most exciting developments arising from current research in my area are two phase III trials. One from the company called "Provenge, Dendreon" and "Merck, stimuvax". Indeed, the double blind, placebo-controlled trials from Dendreon will seek to confirm the results obtained in earlier studies of Dendreon Corporation's proprietary prostate cancer vaccine. Those studies indicated the effectiveness of Dendreon's immunotherapy in delaying the progression of prostate cancer.

The ongoing study using the vaccine Stimuvax, which Merck is co-developing with US biotech firm Oncothyreon, involves more than 1,300 patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC who were stable or responding after chemoradiotherapy and has already shown promising results. The new study in breast cancer will determine if the vaccine can extend progression-free survival in patients treated with hormonal therapy who have hormone receptor-positive, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic breast cancer.

These are really breaks through for immunologists at a time when many have failed.

Who are your main collaborators? Please describe your work with them.

We are concentrating our efforts mainly on prostate cancer however we are also interested in Head and Neck and Leukaemia.

Regarding prostate cancer, we are collaborating mainly with four groups: Prof. Hardev Pandha from the University of Surrey; Dr.Owen Cole, Prof. Mike Bishop, and Dr. Tom McCulloch from Nottingham City Hospital; Prof. Eric Tartour at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Paris and Prof. John Semes from the Center for Biomedical Proteomics Scientific Director, Virginia Prostate Center. A unique project has been put forward between these centres where immunological, genomic and proteomic studies will be carried out using prostate cancer patients material in view of identifying novel biomarkers that could help predicting which patient is likely to benefit from therapy. Antigens already identified by any of these groups are also being assessed for their potential as immunotherapeutic target and in the near future a Phase 0 trial is thought to be organised.

Regarding head and neck cancer we have a close collaboration between Prof. Eric Tartour and Dr. Robert Ferris from the University of Pittsburgh investigating the immunological potential of a cancer testis antigen found to be overexpressed in Head and Neck.

Regarding leukaemia, we are collaborating with Prof. Richard Clark from the University of Liverpool, Dr. Frederick Chen from the University of Birmingham and Dr. Barbara Guinn from the University of Southampton. AML/CML leukaemia as well as Myeloma are the main leukaemia studied as a collaboration with these groups. We are investigating the expression of a cancer testis antigen both at the mRNA and protein level in those disease as well as the possibility of using this antigen as target for immunotherapy.

How did you come to be working in your research area?

I have always been interested in working in the cancer field and during my BSc I had the opportunity to work on p53 mutations in Gliaomas. thereafter I was able to do a PhD on p53 searching for epitopes as potential tumour targets for immunotherapy programmes against cancers. I have then carried on the same field.

What do you think about the development of open access publishing? Have you published in an open access journal? What motivated you to do so?

I believe that open access publication allows quick publications that will be accessible to wide audience. I have indeed already published in an open access journal and those criteria were amongst those that influenced our choice for publication.

What articles and/or books have you published recently?

Articles:

• Morgan G. Mathieu, Stephen P. Reeder, Cécile Badoual, Eric Tartour, Robert C. Rees, Stéphanie E.B. McArdle.

• HAGE, a cancer/testis antigen expressed in a variety of cancers. (Cancer Immunity submitted).

• Alistair G, Rogers, Thomas A. McCulloch, Zsolt Hodi, Stephanie E. McArdle, Thomas J. Walton, Michael C. Bishop, Steven Darby, Craig N. Robson, Robert Charles Rees1 and Amanda Kathleen Miles. Expression of the novel tumor antigen, T21 is associated with stage and Gleason grade of prostate cancer. (To be submitted).

• Li G, Assudani1 DP, Line A, Cao A, Miles A, Rees RC, McArdle SEB. Identification of Metastasis Associated Antigen 1 (MTA1) by serological screening of prostate cancer cDNA libraries. Open Biochem J. 2008; 2: 100–107.

• Walton TJ, Li G, Seth R, McArdle SE, Bishop MC, Rees RC. DNA demethylation and histone deacetylation inhibition co-operate to re-express estrogen receptor beta and induce apoptosis in prostate cancer cell-lines. Prostate. 2008; 1;68(2):210-22.

• Mathieu MG, Knights AJ, Pawelec G, Riley CL, Wernet D, Lemonnier FA, Straten PT, Mueller L, Rees RC, McArdle SE. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2007 56(12):1885-95. HAGE, a cancer/testis antigen with potential for melanoma immunotherapy: identification of several MHC class I/II HAGE-derived immunogenic peptides.

• Horton RB, Laversin SA, Reeder SP, Rees RC, McArdle SE. Protein Pept Lett. 2007;14(5):455-60. Identification of immunogenic MHC class II Tyrosinase-derived peptides using HLA-DR1 and HLA-DR4 transgenic mice.

• Miles AK, Rogers A, Li G, Seth R, Powe D, McArdle SEB, McCulloch T, Bishop M, Rees RC. Identification of a Novel Prostate Cancer-Associated Tumour antigen. Prostate. 2007, 67(3):274-87.

• Li G, Assudani D, McArdle SEB, Rees RC. SEREX analysis of Prostate Cancer cDNA libraries: the Identification of MTA1 as a Wide-Spread Tumour Associate protein.. International Journal of Cancer. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2007, 56(1):70-80.

Reviews:

• Non-X-linked cancer/testis antigens: identification, expression profile and immunogenicity. Linley AJ, Miles AK, Al-Fawaz M, Lu C, McArdle SEB, Rees RC, Mathieu MG. Current Trends in Immunology. 2009 (in press).

• Riley CL, Mathieu MG, Clark RE, McArdle SE, Rees RC. Cancer Immunol Immunother. Tumour antigen-targeted immunotherapy for chronic myeloid leukaemia: is it still viable?2009 (in press) McArdle S. Cancer vaccines: Uses of HLA transgenic mice compared to genetically modified mice. Front Biosci. 2009; 14:4640-51.

• S. McArdle. Cancer vaccines: Uses of HLA transgenic mice compared to genetically modified mice . Frontier in Bioscience. (in press) 2008.

• Miles A, Roger A, Parkinson R, RC Rees, McArdle S. Current Cancer Therapy Reviews 2008 4: 86-95.

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