Specialty / Expertise

Breast and Ovarian Cancer
Immunotherapy

Research Interests

Cancer vaccines and T-cell therapy, Cancer Immunodiagnostics

Current Research Projects

Please see www.tumorvaccinegroup.org

Research Staff

Training

Dr. Disis graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical School and completed an Internal Medicine Residency and Chief Residency at the University of Illinois, Chicago, IL. She trained in Oncology at the University of Washington (UW) and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC)

Selected Publications:

Knutson, K.L., Schiffman, K., and Disis, M.L.: Immunization with a HER-2/neu helper peptide vaccine generates HER-2/neu CD8 T cell immunity in cancer patientsJ Clin Investigation 2001 107:477-484.

Disis, M.L., Gooley, T.A., Rinn, K., Davis, D., Peipkorn, M., Cheever, M.A., Knutson, K.L., and Schiffman, K.: Generation of T cell immunity to the HER-2/neu protein after active immunization with a HER-2/neu peptide based vaccine. J Clin Oncol 2002 20(11):2624-2632.

Disis, M.L., Rinn, K., Knutson, K.L., Davis, D., Caron, D., dela Rosa, C., and Schiffman, K: Flt3 ligand as a vaccine adjuvant in association with HER-2/neu peptide based vaccines in patients with HER-2/neu overexpressing cancers. Blood 2002 99(8):2845-2850.

Montgomery, R.B., Makary, E., Schiffman, K., Goodell, V., and Disis, M.L.: Endogenous anti-HER2 antibodies suppress HER2 phosphorylation and signaling through extracellular signal-regulated kinase. Cancer Research 2005 Jan 15;65(2):650-656.

Goodell, V, Salazar, L. G. Urban, N., Drescher, C., Gray, H., Swensen, R., McIntosh, M.W., and Disis, M.L.: Antibody immunity to oncogenic proteins is a prognostic indicator in ovarian cancer. J Clin Oncol 2006 Feb 10;24:762-768.

Knutson, K.L., Dang, Y., Lu, H., Lukas, J., Almand, B., Makary, E., Azeke, E., and Disis, M.L.: IL-2 immunotoxin therapy modulates tumor associated regulatory T cells and leads to lasting immune-mediated rejection of breast cancers in neu-transgenic mice. J Immunology 2006 177(1):84-91.

Lu, H., Knutson, K.L., Gad, E., and Disis, M.L.: The tumor antigen repertoire identified in tumor bearing neu transgenic mice predicts human tumor antigens. Cancer Research 2006 66(19)9754-9761.

Dang, Y., Knutson, K.L., Goodell, V., delaRosa, C., Salazar, L.G., Higgins, D., Childs, J., and Disis, M.L.: Tumor antigen specific T cell expansion is greatly facilitated by in vivo priming. Clin Cancer Research 2007 Mar 15;13(6):1883-1891.