Human Immune Monitoring Center

The TCI Human Immune Monitoring Center Shared Resource (HIMCSR) is a collaborative consortium of technologists, immunologists, clinicians, and computational biologists with the coordinated goal of generating unprecedented immune profiling datasets to interrogate the etiology of cancer, novel biomarkers of disease course, and response to immunotherapy trials in cancer patients. The HIMCSR includes a range of cutting-edge high-throughput technology platforms to define circulating immune factors in blood and body fluids; characterize immune cells in blood, bone marrow and tissue samples; interrogate specific cellular, molecular immune pathways that may be dysregulated in disease; and characterize changes upon therapy or treatment. These complementary technology platforms are fully integrated with automated laboratory, biospecimen, and data management systems to facilitate detailed immune characterization of patient samples at exceptional scale with uncompromising data quality and scientific rigor. These data may be linked with cutting-edge computational, bioinformatics, and machine learning pipelines to extract meaningful and actionable therapeutic insights. The HIMCSR contributes to the TCI’s mission by providing state-of-the-art technologies, project development, consistency, interpretations, and cost-effectiveness to all TCI programs. The Specific Aims of this Shared Resource are to: (1) Provide full-service implementation of high-dimensional, state-of-the-art technologies to assess immune cell phenotypes, functionality, and changes upon treatment using cancer patient biospecimens; (2) Continuously optimize methods, instruments, reagents, analytical methods, and standard operating procedures to remain at the cutting-edge of immune monitoring approaches.