Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2012

Mentor: Roger N. Rosenberg, MD                       
Department: Neurology and Neurotherapeutics          
Room number:         J3-120
Mail Code:     9036  
Phone number: 214-648-0246     
E-mail: roger.rosenberg@utsouthwestern.edu             

Project title:   Vaccine development for neurodegenerative diseases          

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):  2008-0075

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)

Brief Description of Project:
To characterize the safety and efficacy of a DNA Aβ42 vaccine for the possible use as therapy to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease in human patients a mouse model is used.  Mice which are immunized with the DNA vaccine and control vaccines will be characterized in detail.  The humoral immune responses(antibody titers, antibody isotypes, and antibody epitope studies) as well as the cellular immune responses (proliferation, flow cytometry to characterize the responding cell population, cytokine ELISAs, and ELISPOT assays) will be analyzed.  These animal studies are very important to support a possible future clinical trial using this vaccine approach.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

Suzanna has been working already last year on this project and a continuation of her work will be highly productive and successful.