Recent Advances in Immune Monitoring

The human immune system plays a pivotal role in conferring protective immunity to pathogenic microorganisms and cancer while its hyper-activation can result in serious inflammatory conditions such as autoimmunity. Immune monitoring is critical to determine the efficacy of therapeutic approaches such as the administration of a vaccine or to ascertain the safety of an administered agent such as a biologic that targets the immune system. Immune monitoring can involve the measurement of soluble immune mediators including cytokines and chemokines, as well as the analysis of phenotypic and functional status of immune cells. There is a plethora of platforms that offer highly sensitive and specific assays to monitor the immune system. These include simple immunoassays to complex multiplex assays that measure soluble biomarkers in various biological fluids and cell-based assays using a variety of platforms such as flow cytometry and enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay. In order to generate reliable immune monitoring data that will help us determine the safety and efficacy of the therapeutic intervention approach from a global study, highly standardized methods to collect, process and prepare patient samples need to be implemented. This webinar focuses on the recent advances in immune monitoring.