The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corp project is the eventual creation of a therapeutic cancer vaccine that has the potential to achieve clinically meaningful and statistically significant recurrence free survival. The technology involves obtaining patient cancer cells and through a process of biomineralization and surface adsorption with danger signals (i.e. adjuvants already used in clinical use) transforms the cells into potent cancer vaccines. The potential for a durable benefit with this approach in women with ovarian cancer is supported by data demonstrating that successful induction of an anti-tumor immune response has a significant impact on long-term survival and by early results from prior vaccine trials. Following isolation of cancer cells, the process can be completed in less than 24 hours, without the need for cell culture or genetic alteration, reducing risks and costs of production. The personalized cancer vaccine is stable to storage and dehydration, and thus is available for immediate and future use and can be transported without the need for cold storage.
This I-Corps project seeks to further develop a cancer vaccine that is not an incremental advance in vaccine design, rather it would transform both the production and distribution of cancer vaccines to facilitate the integration of immune therapy into current treatment protocols. Seventy percent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer have advanced disease. While chemotherapy offers some initial release, the majority of patients relapse. Currently no therapeutic alternatives exist, making the need for better alternatives extreme. The proposed technology transforms patient cancer cells into pathogen mimics by decorating the cell surface with pathogen-associated molecular patterns. These patterns activate immune cells to attack and kill the cancer cells. Preclinical testing in mice has demonstrated that administration of the vaccine prior to tumor growth prevents tumor engraftment in all vaccinated mice. Furthermore, early studies show that treatment of mice with established ovarian cancer results in elimination of cancer in 75% of the subjects, with a partial response in the remaining. Future dose optimization and combinatorial testing with immune checkpoint blockade are expected to further improve on the technology.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
