I concentrated on the expansion of T cells specific against the oncogenic human papilloma virus 16 (HPV16), which are a very rare population in the blood of healthy donors as well as patients with HPV16-associated cancer. Instead of mature dendritic cells (DC) as antigen presenting cells, which are a potent but limitated system, I used activated B cells.

I was able to expand cytotoxic active HPV-specific T cells to therapeutically relevant cell numbers. I analysed the T cell receptors of the E7-specific T cells well as their avidity to get a first idea of clonality and avidity of HPV-specific T cell pools.