The American Association for Cancer Research brings over 16,000 people together each year for their annual conference. Scientists come from all over the world on March 27, 2004 to present and share their findings in every conceivable field of cancer research. Upon arrival at the conference in Orlando, Florida, we were completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that we would meet and events that we would experience over the course of the next few days. It was not until we entered the grand ballroom of the Orange County Convention Center, fully equipped with an official looking AACR badge and signature backpack, that we came to the realization of how enormous the conference actually was and what the number 16,000 truly represented.
Our trip to Orlando was not the traditional Orlando visit; there was no adventure at Disney World, no trip to Universal studios and no tickets to Sea World. However, the conference provided more than we could ever see in four days.
The protocol for attending a conference such as this one includes:
1. Wearing comfortable shoes that will allow one to walk miles
2. Braving the three-hour time difference to get up before the crack of dawn to try to attend the meet-the-expert sunrise sessions. Note: Failure is inevitable.
3. Reading poster upon poster upon poster
4. Asking questions and offering constructive criticisms
5. Engaging in relevant, useful discussions
6. Presenting a poster of your own research
7. Answering questions and fielding
constructive criticisms
8. Getting free stuff from vendors representing all of the major and some unheard of biotechnology companies worldwide
9. Sitting in on award winning lectures given by some of the most widely respected and innovative scientists in the field of cancer research
10. Trying to understand the award winning lectures given by these widely respected and innovative scientists in the field of cancer research
11. Sitting in on discussions and symposiums held by some of the up and comers in the cancer research field doing some interesting and sometimes breakthrough science
12. Repeating until the conference ends at which point it is perfectly acceptable to collapse from utter exhaustion
We work with Dr. Michael Graner and Dr. Emmanuel Katsanis, in a pediatric hematology/oncology lab in the Children’s Research Center that focuses primarily on tumor immunology research involving a novel heat shock protein based anti-cancer vaccine. Our project is an offshoot of this primary research and came about because of early experiments using the vaccine in vivo. It was found in early dose escalation assays that the anti-tumor effects of the vaccine were abrogated when therapeutic concentrations administered rose above 20 mg. The reason for the decreased efficacy of the vaccine was pinned on an immunosuppressive substance that was postulated to have co-purified with the proteins in the vaccine. The suppressive substance has since been shown to be an apparently non-mutated form of serum albumin produced or recruited by at least some murine tumors and harbor some immunosuppressive and as of yet unknown lipophilic moieties. We have been able to purify this Tumor Expressed Albumin (TEA) from in vivo grown tumor masses through ammonium sulfate precipitation, affinity and exchange chromatography. This albumin, unlike normal serum albumin purified from the blood, is capable of inhibiting T-cell activation, proliferation, and function in both in vitro and in vivo settings. TEA does not appear to affect antigen processing or presentation by professional antigen presenting cells. The novel immunosuppressive activity of TEA appears to lie in small, lipid-like moieties bound to the serum albumin, and can be removed by lipase treatments or lipid removal of TEA by protease digestion. We have demonstrated that immune-potent Tumor Expressed Albumin originating from mouse tumors causes immunosuppression in naïve murine T-cells and T-cell hybridoma cell lines. As well, preliminary experiments using albumin obtained from leukemia and ovarian carcinoma patients demonstrate similar inhibition of T-cell activities.
The experience we had at the AACR conference was a culmination of all the knowledge and experience that has been gained over the last four years through both taking classes and doing research. Everything has worked together to not only teach us how to think critically and constructively about problems but also how to ask intelligent questions, which is an integral part of being a good scientist. All of the information in the world can be available to you, but if you don’t know how to ask the right questions it doesn’t really matter. Without the proper preparation, we would not have gotten as much as we did out of the conference and the novel and interesting research presented there. In that respect, we owe a lot of gratitude and appreciation not only to the university and the professors who taught us, but to the UBRP program especially because without it, we would not have had the opportunity to participate in the process of discovery and learning how to think scientifically. As well, without the funding provided by the UBRP program via the HHMI grant #52003749, we would not have had the chance to attend this conference or present our research and for that we are eternally grateful. We hope that the UBRP program continues for years to come to allow other undergraduates to experience the same things we have been able to.
Jane Davis and Angela Romanoski, UBRPers in the Katsanis lab, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
