Roswell Park Cancer Institute researchers plan to test a novel adoptive cell immunotherapy platform in phase I/II clinical trials after seeing promising results in preclinical studies. They presented the findings of that preliminary research at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2017.

Richard Koya, MD, PhD, Associate Director of the Center for Immunotherapy (CFI) at Roswell Park, is the first author on this new work, and the Deputy Director of the Institute and Executive Director of the CFI, Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, is the senior author of “Sustained efficacy of immunotherapy for solid tumors with novel dual CD4/CD8 T cell receptor engineered synergistic combination of hematopoietic stem cells and T cells.”

The study demonstrated a unique approach to adoptive cell transfer, a form of immunotherapy in which a patient’s own immune cells are drawn from blood, genetically engineered, multiplied and injected back into the patient in order to stimulate a sustained attack against cancer.

“This research demonstrates for the first time that a combined cell immunotherapy approach produces robust, efficient and unprecedented control of tumors. We are combining two different types of cells, adult stem cells from blood and T lymphocytes, in a unique way and through a platform targeting NY–ESO–1, a known tumor biomarker,” says Dr. Koya.

The approach is based on technology developed in Roswell Park labs that renders immune cells highly active and specific against various types of cancer. This novel approach showed efficacy in the laboratory against a very aggressive type of human ovarian cancer, providing the rationale for a prospective clinical trial in collaboration with a Roswell Park spin–off company, Tactiva Therapeutics, which will provide the reagents and vectors for genetic engineering of cells.

Dr. Odunsi adds, “This distinctive therapeutic approach has the potential to provide patients with an ongoing source of cancer–fighting cells to battle difficult–to–treat solid tumors and prevent disease relapse. The next steps are to investigate this approach in early–stage clinical trials.”