The Immunotherapy Center’s researchers work to unlock the secrets of the body’s immune system, and in the process understand why it sometimes fails to defend against threats — and other times attacks healthy tissue.

The center’s mission is to discover the fundamental molecular mechanisms and cellular processes that control the immune system and to translate this new knowledge into new approaches to prevent and treat clinical disease. Diseases of particular interest include cancer, chronic infectious diseases (for example, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis) and autoimmune diseases (for example, type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis).  

Worth noting: The Immunotherapy Center is part of the Cancer Research Center, which includes new research facilities to support basic and clinical research, including facilities essential for studies on patient materials for pre-clinical research and experimental clinical trials.

Institutions involved: Medical College of Georgia  

Research focus: The center’s research focuses on the fundamental mechanisms that regulate immune system activity, particularly those that help prevent autoimmune diseases but allow tumors and chronic infections to persist. Researchers’ goals are to discover how to manipulate these mechanisms for two important purposes:

• To stimulate the immune system to attack tumors and infected cells
• To prevent the immune system from destroying healthy cells and transplanted organs and tissues 

GRA investment: The center is led by GRA Eminent Scholar Andrew L. Mellor.  

External funding: The center attracts some $2.5 million annually, mostly from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Web site: http://www.mcg.edu/ITC