The work on “Understanding, and Exploiting, the Contribution of the Immune System to the Therapeutic Efficacy of Oncolytic Virotherapy with Vesicular Stomatitis Virus”was selected for the 2014 NRCT Thesis Award. Dr. Phonphimon Wongthida, BIOTEC researcher in Virology and Cell Technology Laboratory, conducted this work as her PhD thesis at Mayo Graduate School under the supervision of Prof. Richard Vile. The study showed the role of both, innate and adaptive immune responses, in mediating VSV virotherapy. Firstly, innate immune signaling through the MyD88 adaptor protein, and subsequent production of type I IFN and IL-28, is critical to the anti- tumor therapy of oncolytic VSV in immune competent model. Secondly, adoptive transfer of antigen specific cells can be successfully combined with intra-tumoral antigen expressing oncolytic virus to treat both the locally injected tumor and also systemic tumors not injected with virus.