VACCINE FOR PATIENTS WITH NON HODGKINS LYMPHOMA

These investigators propose to clone and sequence the VH regions from lymphoma-associated immunoglobulin from fresh lymph node tissue from patients with recurrent lymphoma. They will chose a peptide sequence of 25-mer from the VH region based on its inclusion of 9 mers having optimal MHC peptide binding capacity using a bio-informatics approach based on predictions using binding motifs established for specific HLA-1 alleles expressed by the patient. The peptide will be synthesized and used to "pulse" dendritic cells enriched from the peripheral blood generated in vivo by treatment with FLT-3 ligand. They anticipate that the multiple antigen presenting cell populations within the DC peripheral blood will process and present a wide spectrum of antigens in the context of MHC class I leading to a broad CD8 + T cell response generated against tumor-associated immunoglobulin, and therefore, the tumor. They anticipate evaluating five patients per year for two years. They will determine the safety and feasibility of the in vivo generation of DC from peripheral blood in this patient population, they will determine the safety and feasibility of vaccination with tumor VH peptide pulsed DC, and determine the clinical and immunologic response of vaccination with the tumor VH peptide pulsed DC from peripheral blood from patients with lymphoma.