The VIC HDI program takes a holistic approach to understanding human inflammatory and immune responses through use of technologies enabling parallel assessment of multiple cellular and clinical parameters.
The overall objectives of the program are:
To develop new immune-based diagnostics and tools to inform clinical decisions
Rigorous application of multi-parameter technologies to guide discovery and development of new therapeutics for cancer, infectious diseases, and degenerative diseases
VIC HDI scientists have developed computational strategies and algorithms for analyzing high-dimensional data to identify specific immune system responses associated with clinical measures and outcomes. The program utilizes multiple high-parameter technologies, applying them singly or in combination as appropriate for a specific project to maximize the amount of information obtained from small clinical samples of blood or tissue, such as
Multi-parameter profiling of immune cells using mass cytometry
Multi-modal imaging of immune cells in pathology samples
The HDI program is open to collaboration with academic and industry researchers from outside of VIC and MGH. Current active projects address a variety of clinical areas, including infectious disease vaccines, the immune microenvironment in solid tumors, immune system changes following organ transplantation or traumatic injury, and immune dysfunction in degenerative diseases.