Research Interests:
Dr. Scholler's two primary aims are 1/ to study the immune system's response to ovarian cancer, and in particular the role of innate immunity in cancer growth, and 2/ to develop tools for early diagnostic and therapy of cancer. Nathalie Scholler earned an M.D. degree from the School of Medicine of Aix-Marseille II (France), and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University Aix-Marseille II (France) where she was mentored by Pierre Golstein who discovered CTLA4, a potent immunosuppressive molecule. After her post-doctorate fellowship in Autoimmunity in the laboratory of Peter S. Linsley at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute of Seattle, WA, she joined the Tumor Immunology group of Ingegerd and Karl-Erik Hellström at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute, Seattle, WA. There, she first described that mesothelin is a serum marker for ovarian cancer and developed an anti-mesothelin ELISA assay, now commercialized by Fujirebio (Mesomark ®). She also studied DNA vaccine strategies against breast cancer in collaboration with Nora ML. Disis at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, and antigen-presenting cell biology with Jeffrey A. Ledbetter. She then worked at Seattle Genetics, Inc, a biotech company dedicated to antibody-targeted therapies in Bothell, WA, and in 2003 she joined the Translational and Outcomes Research (TOR) group of Nicole Urban at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) of Seattle, WA.

Under Dr Scholler's direction (2003-2007), the TOR laboratory developed a new generation of recombinant antibodies secreted by yeast in a biotinylated form (biobodies) and demonstrated that biobodies can cost-effectively replace monoclonal antibodies in diagnostic applications."


Recent Representative Publications:
Scholler, N., Garvik, B., Hayden-Ledbetter, M., Kline, T., and Urban, N. (2007). Development of a CA125-mesothelin cell adhesion assay as a screening tool for biologics discovery. Cancer Lett 247, 130-6.

Bergan, L., Gross, J. A., Nevin, B., Urban, N., and Scholler, N. (2007). Development and in vitro validation of anti-mesothelin biobodies that prevent CA125/Mesothelin-dependent cell attachment. Cancer Lett 255, 263-74.

Scholler, N., Crawford, M., Sato, A., Drescher, C. W., O'Briant, K. C., Kiviat, N., Anderson, G. L., and Urban, N. (2006). Bead-based ELISA for validation of ovarian cancer early detection markers. Clin Cancer Res 12, 2117-24.

Scholler, N., Garvik, B., Quarles, T., Jiang, S., and Urban, N. (2006). Method for generation of in vivo biotinylated recombinant antibodies by yeast mating. J Immunol Methods 317, 132-43.

McIntosh, M. W., Drescher, C., Karlan, B., Scholler, N., Urban, N., Hellstrom, K. E., and Hellstrom, I. (2004). Combining CA 125 and SMR serum markers for diagnosis and early detection of ovarian carcinoma. Gynecol Oncol 95, 9-15.

Disis, M. L., Scholler, N., Dahlin, A., Pullman, J., Knutson, K. L., Hellstrom, K. E., and Hellstrom, I. (2003). Plasmid-based vaccines encoding rat neu and immune stimulatory molecules can elicit rat neu-specific immunity. Mol Cancer Ther 2, 995-1002.
Scholler, N., Hayden-Ledbetter, M., Dahlin, A., Hellström, I., Hellström, K. E. and Ledbetter, J. A. 2002. CD83 Regulates the Development of Cellular Immunity. Journal of Immunology. 168: 2599-2602.

Scholler, N., Hayden-Ledbetter, M., Hellström, I., Hellström, K. E. and Ledbetter, J. A. 2001. CD83 is a Sialic Acid-Binding Immunoglobin-Like Lectin (Siglec) Adhesion Receptor that Binds Monocytes and a Subset of Activated CD8+ T Cells. Journal of Immunology. 166: 3865-3872.

Scholler, N., Disis, M. L., Dahlin, A., Hellström, K. E., Pullman, J. and Hellström, I. 2001. HER2 DNA immunization with costimulatory molecules elicits functional anti-HER2 antibodies. Molecular Therapy. 3(5): S69-70.

Hellström, I., Ledbetter, J. A., Scholler, N., Yang, Y., Ye, Z. M., Goodman, G. E., Pullman, J., Hayden-Ledbetter, M. and Hellström, K. E. 2001. CD3-mediated activation of tumor-reactive lymphocytes from patients with advanced cancer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Jun 5; 98(12): 6783-6788.

Scholler, N., Fu, N., Yang, Y., Ye, Z. M., Goodman, G. E., Hellström, K. E. and Hellström, I. 1999. Soluble member(s) of the mesothelin/megakaryocyte potentiating factor family are detectable in sera from patients with ovarian carcinoma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 96(20):11531-11536.

Couissiner-Paris, P., Bourgeois, A., Nessein, H., Bacellar, O., Rodriguez, V. Jr., Kohlstadt, S., Buonavista, N., Pene, J. and Dessein, A. J. 1995. Identification of a major T cell immunogen in the anti-schistosome response of adult residents in an area endemic of Schistosoma mansoni. European Journal of Immunology. 24 (4): 903-910.

Cornillon, S., Foa, C., Davoust, J., Buonavista, N., Gross, J. D. and Goldstein, P. 1994. Programmed cell death in Dictyostelium. Journal of Cell Science. Oct; 107(10): 2691-2704.

Balzano, C., Buonavista, N., Rouvier, E. and Goldstein, P. 1992. CTLA-4 CD28, similar protein, neighboring genes. International Journal of Cancer. Suppl 7, 28-32.

Buonavista, N., Balzano, C., Pontarotti, P., Le Paslier, D. and Goldstein, P. 1992. Molecular linkage of human CTLA-4 and CD28 Ig-superfamily genes in yeast artificial chromosomes. Genomics. Jul; 13(3):856-861.