Novel cancer immunotherapy: Design and construction of a prototype medical device adapted to small animals and proof-of-principle experiments.

• Research unit: INNOSUISSE
• Project number: 10686.1;4 PFLS-LS

Short description (English)

Novel cancer immunotherapy: Design and construction of a prototype medical device adapted to small animals and proof-of-principle experiments.

Short description (French)

Novel cancer immunotherapy: Design and construction of a prototype medical device adapted to small animals and proof-of-principle experiments.

Abstract (French)

It has been a long-standing goal to increase cancer therapy efficacy by enhancing the patient¿s anti-cancer immune responses. Heat shock proteins are excellent natural adjuvants and have been shown to be capable of effectively re-presenting tumor antigens to the immune system as well as of altering the tumor environment from immunosuppressive to immunomodulatory. These properties of heat shock proteins are being exploited in an autologous, i.e., patient-specific, tumor vaccination approach, pioneered by Antigenics Inc., that has shown some efficacy in multiple clinical trials. The approach is highly complex and expensive, requiring the taking of biopsies, biochemical isolation of protein complexes under clinically acceptable conditions, and subsequent readministration to the biopsied patient. It is also limited by the amount of biopsy material that can be taken from patients. The present project aims to test a novel device-mediated approach that is based on similar principles but lacks the complexities, the presumptive high price tag and the biopsy size/immunogenic material limitations of the autologous vaccination therapy. Positive results from the proposed animal proof-of-concept studies would justify construction of a human-scale medical device and the conduct of clinical trials