Neil Berinstein

1. Molecular analysis of lymphoproliferative disorders: Dr. Berinstein’s lab has and is developing a number of molecular assays to both monitor and prognosticate human lymphomas. Using real-time PCR his lab has developed highly sensitive and reproducible assays to detect minimal residual disease and is applying this to monitor patients undergoing standard therapies and experimental therapies including stem cell transplants. His lab has also developed various real-time PCR based assays to assess for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of immunologically relevant genes to determine whether enhanced prognostic models can be developed for patients undergoing routine or experimental cancer therapies. High throughput assays using multi-colour dyes and high-resolution melting point methodologies are being utilized and further developed.
    
2. Immunotherapy of cancer: Dr. Berinstein has a long-standing interest in cancer immunotherapy and has developed and is developing novel vaccine/immunomodulator therapeutic approaches. He is working with various biotechnology companies and cancer researchers to develop novel clinical strategies to augment anti-tumor immune responses to various cancers.

Recent Publications

1. Berinstein NL: Enhancing cancer vaccines with immunomodulators. Vaccine 25 Suppl 2:B72-88, 2007
2. Berinstein NL: Strategies to enhance the therapeutic activity of cancer vaccines: using melanoma as a model. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1174:107-17, 2009
3. Pennell N, Woods A, Reis M, et al: Association of clinical status of follicular lymphoma patients after autologous stem cell transplant and quantitative assessment of lymphoma in blood and bone marrow as measured by SYBR Green I polymerase chain reaction. J Mol Diagn 8:40-50, 2006
4. Pennell NM, Bhanji T, Zhang L, et al: Lack of prognostic value of FCGR3A-V158F polymorphism in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Haematologica 93:1265-7, 2008
5. Neil L. Berinstein MD, Nancy Pennell: Survival and Molecular Remissions. Clinical outcome of patients with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma may be influenced by an inherited functional polymorphism in the Interleukin 12 gene: Eleventh Annual conference on Malignant Lymphoma, Lugano, Switzerland, June 2011
6. Sita Bhella, Nancy Pennell, Matthew Cheung, Kevin R. Imrie2, Violet Miliken, Marciano D. Reis, Alden Chesney, David Good2, Lisa Hicks, Eugenia Piliotis, Michael Crump, Rena Buckstein and Neil L Berinstein: Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation with Immunotherapy induces prolonged clinical and molecular remissions and may cure patients with recurrent follicular lymphoma; Eleventh Annual conference on Malignant Lymphoma, Lugano, Switzerland, June 2011