Sean Ryan
Year started program: 2003
Program name: Immunology
2003 - BS, Microbiology, University of Kansas

With the large number of quality universities out there it was quite a daunting task trying to narrow down the places I wanted to apply for research-based graduate training. I felt fairly sure of the field of study I wanted to pursue, immunology, but at the same time, the opportunity to be exposed to many different areas of biomedical research made me more confident that I would make a more informed choice. In the end I found that on paper and in person, the interdisciplinary program at the University of Pittsburgh provided both a superior biomedical-based education as well as a superior graduate school environment.

My work here at Pitt involves the immune responses to different regions of the tumor-associated antigen mucin 1 (MUC1). MUC1 is referred to as a tumor-associated antigen because a large majority of human adenocarcinomas over-express an aberrant form of the molecule that can be recognized by the immune system in cancer patients. Although, even with this altered expression and detectable response patients still succumb to their disease. To better understand and characterize the immune response to tumor-associated MUC1 I am using the human MUC1 transgenic mouse as a pre-clinical model. My study is comparing the immune response to the previously used tumor-associated form of MUC1 with a new, and potentially more tumor specific, form of MUC1 in the MUC1 transgenic mouse. We believe a differential level of T cell tolerance vs immunity exists towards these two different forms of MUC1, which relates to differing levels of tumor protection. These studies will aid in tailoring more effective MUC1 vaccination strategies.

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