New technology creates tailored T-cell armies against cancer

This year, more than 60,000 Swedes will be diagnosed with cancer, a term that encompasses 200 different diseases. With access to increasingly advanced treatments, healthcare helps more and more patients to survive their cancer, although often at the cost of severe side effects. The breakthrough of immunotherapies has provided healthcare with important tools, and in a new thesis at Uppsala University, PhD Student Ida Laurén introduces a drug platform with the potential to further advance our position in the fight against cancer.

“Building on previous advances, we have developed a drug platform that works like a vaccine, where we train the immune system to fight various forms of tumor diseases. We recently published our latest results in Nature Communications, and when we present our research at scientific conferences, it arouses great interest within the research community,” states Ida Laurén, PhD student at the Department of Pharmacy.

Immunotherapies utilize our immune system to treat diseases and at the center of the new platform is a unique antibody with the ability to bind to our dendritic cells while transporting a tumor antigen, leading to the activation of the killer T cells that can kill the specific tumor.

“With our drug platform, we can use a tissue sample from the tumor to individually customize the treatment by producing antigen that is unique to the individual patient. This is made possible via a peptide sequence that we attach to the antibody without the need for chemical composition. We have tested our platform on both colon and lung cancer in mice and see that it effectively kills the tumor cells without causing toxic side effects. The next level is a clinical study in humans, and with the right funding we will hopefully take the step already within the next couple of years,” says Ida Laurén.

The drug platform is developed by Sara Mangsbo, Professor of Protein and Antibody Drugs, in close collaboration with SciLifeLab and Johan Rockberg, Professor of Antibody Technology and Directed Evolution at KTH. Mangsbo and Rockberg have also, together with Ida Laurén and other researchers, founded biotech company Strike Pharma, which today leads the continued work to explore the antibody's potential within targeted delivery.

“I joined Sara's group as a master's student in 2018 and we have since made great progress to enable tailored, individualized cancer treatments. This adaptation provides a more targeted therapy that will hopefully also reduce severe side effects. It has been an amazing journey to be a part of, and I really hope that we will succeed in taking our drug platform all the way to clinic,” says Ida Laurén.

Text & Photo: Magnus Alsne