Research / Clinical Summary

Davorka Messmer, PhD Assistant Project Scientist, Cancer Center Hematologic Malignancies Program Contact by Email

Dr. Davorka Messmer’s research has been focused on dendritic cell (DC) biology in normal and disease settings. She has studied the DC maturation process, which is a critical event for the induction of immune responses. She has identified a core and a stimulus-specific maturation program and shown that the DC maturation process is plastic. She has shown that DCs isolated from CLL patients are functionally normal and can thus be used for DC based immunotherapy in those patients. She has participated in a clinical study that demonstrated the leukemic cells in CLL, which were thought to have a defect in apoptosis, actually turn over at a significant rate in the patients.

She has shown that a nuclear protein and some of its peptides acts a potent maturation stimulus for DCs and can be a potential adjuvant for the induction of immune responses against tumors. In a more recent line of investigation together with Tom Kipps she has shown that macrophages, Nurselike cells and dendritic cells support survival of CLL B cells in vitro and is currently investigating modes of interference.

As part of the nanotechnology initiative, Dr. Messmer is collaborating with faculty from the Depts. Of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Bioengineering, to develop novel tumor immunotherapeutics.

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