Dendritic immunotherapy improvement for an optimal control murine model
Ponente(s): Julio Rangel Reyes, Juan Carlos Chimal EguĂa, Erandi Castillo Montiel
Protocols in immunotherapy are usually proposed following the intuition and expe-
rience of the therapist. In this work, we forego experience and intuition and use
mathematical modeling, optimal control and simulations to deduce such protocols.
The clinical efficacy of dendritic cells (DCs) vaccines to cancer treatment is still un-
clear. Dendritic cells face several obstacles in the host environment, such as immuno-
suppression and poor transference to the lymph nodes reducing the vaccine effect.
We have created a mathematical murine model to measure the effects of dendritic
cell injections. The model agrees with the experimental results with and without the
therapy made in mice infected with melanoma. We aim to create a realistic therapy
which takes into account the therapy given by bolus injections of small duration not
as a continual dose. We show that the dendritic cells percentage manage to reach
the lymph nodes having a crucial impact on the therapy outcome. This suggests that
efforts in finding better methods to deliver DC vaccines should be pursued.