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.