What Immune memory Assessment Covers
Cancer vaccine programs often show acute immune activation after vaccination, yet the question that matters for durability is whether antigen-specific memory persists and responds on re-exposure. Our immune memory assessment service is an immune monitoring and readout offering: we work with your vaccine candidate and study question to design prime-boost schedules, collect samples at memory timepoints, and profile memory T/B-cell subsets, antigen-specific recall cytokine responses, and antibody readouts. Tumor rechallenge or microenvironment readouts can be added when included in the project scope to assess whether recalled memory responses are functionally protective. The work is readout-focused — vaccine design and manufacturing are outside this service — and scope, timepoints, and assay panels are defined case by case in the project SOW.
Longitudinal antigen-specific T cell response assays can complement memory phenotyping with functional recall measurements.
What the Service Can Include
Prime-Boost and Recall Scheduling
Study design support around vaccination and prime-boost schedules, with sampling at defined memory and antigen re-exposure timepoints so acute responses are not mistaken for durable memory.
Memory T/B-Cell Immunophenotyping
Flow cytometric profiling of memory T-cell and B-cell subsets from blood, spleen, lymph node, and tumor samples, with gating controls and QC reporting.
Antigen-Specific Recall Assays
ELISpot and intracellular cytokine recall assays against the vaccine antigen, reported per sample and per timepoint; antigen panel and readout depth are scoped per project.
Optional Tumor Rechallenge Readout
When project-scoped, tumor rechallenge protection monitoring and microenvironment readouts can be added to assess whether recalled memory responses are functionally protective.
How an Engagement Typically Runs
Deliverables
| Deliverable | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Study design summary | Documented vaccine dosing schedule, prime-boost and recall timepoints, sampling plan, and assay panel agreed at project start. |
| Immunophenotyping dataset | Flow cytometric memory T/B-cell subset frequencies from blood, spleen, lymph node, and tumor samples, with gating strategy and QC controls. |
| Recall response data | Antigen-specific cytokine recall results from ELISpot and intracellular cytokine assays, reported per sample and per timepoint. |
| Rechallenge monitoring record | Tumor rechallenge protection readouts when included in scope, summarized alongside the corresponding memory response data. |
| Summary report with raw datasets | Final report combining methods, QC notes, summarized results, and the underlying raw data files for customer review. |
Why choose our immune memory assessment service
Memory-focused readout design
Projects are structured around prime-boost and antigen recall timepoints so that durable, antigen-specific memory responses are assessed rather than acute post-vaccination activation alone.
Multi-site sampling
Blood, spleen, lymph node, and tumor samples can be incorporated into the sampling plan, allowing memory populations to be compared across compartments within the same study.
QC-aware flow cytometry
Flow cytometric memory subset profiling is reported with gating strategy and QC gating controls, so that dataset interpretation is transparent and traceable.
Optional functional protection readout
Tumor rechallenge protection monitoring can be added when project scope requires a functional readout alongside the recall and persistence data.
Further reading
Research reference
1. RNA neoantigen vaccines prime long-lived CD8+ T cells in pancreatic cancer
Nature. 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08508-4.
View articlePlan a Cancer vaccine Immune memory Assessment
Share your vaccine candidate, host model or human sample type, and prime-boost schedule. We will outline a scoped immune monitoring plan covering sampling timepoints, memory T/B-cell readouts, antigen recall assays, and optional tumor rechallenge, with deliverables and QC defined in the project SOW.
Human sample-based projects can include PBMC isolation and immune cell preparation for consistent immune-cell preparation across time points.