Can we boost immunotherapy for lung cancer using a brand new molecule?
Cancer types:
Lung cancer
Project period:
–
Research institute:
Stanford University
Award amount:
£227,450
Location:
USA
Dr Julien Sage and his team in the US are developing a new treatment to help boost the power of immunotherapy for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Currently very few patients with SCLC respond well to immunotherapy, and their work offers hope to thousands of patients diagnosed with this type of cancer every year.
Why is this research needed?
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) makes up almost a fifth of all cases of lung cancer. It is aggressive and fast growing, and unfortunately has limited treatment options. Immunotherapy treatments, which are designed to use our own immune system to target cancer, work very well for some lung cancers and have begun to improve survival for SCLC. But sadly, they are still not effective for many people with the disease.
Dr Sage and his team have designed a new molecule called a Trikine, that they think could help to make immunotherapy more powerful and effective for patients with SCLC. But it needs a lot of testing before it can reach patients. With this Curestarter funding, the team are now gathering vital evidence about how the new treatment might work. This could ultimately lead to a new life-changing treatment for people with lung cancer.
Our work simply would not happen without the generosity of people like the Curestarters, and I am deeply grateful that you choose to invest in bold ideas in cancer research. Your support allows my lab to ask ambitious questions that traditional funding often considers “too early” or “too risky,” but that are exactly the questions that can lead to the next big breakthrough for people with cancer.
What is the science behind this project?
Immunotherapies are truly revolutionising how we treat cancer. But cancer is sneaky; it can often find ways to hide or stop responding to these treatments.
So Dr Sage’s team have united with another leading team from their university to design a solution. Together, the teams have engineered a new molecule, called a Trikine, that is based on a similar molecule found in the body. They think Trikine could help to super-activate a type of cancer-killing immune cell called a ‘T-Cell’.
Importantly, the team have designed the Trikine so it can work via three separate routes instead of the usual two– boosting its ability to activate our immune system against cancer. The team also predict that this supercharged molecule will work well with an existing immunotherapy called a ‘checkpoint inhibitor’.
First lab results have been very exciting and suggest that their ideas might work. So during this project, the team are now using lab models to investigate exactly how a combination of Trikine plus a checkpoint inhibitor treatment could work to target SCLC tumours – especially tumours that have begun to spread.
What difference could this project make to patients in the future?
This project brings together two leading research groups to find new ways to boost immunotherapy effectiveness in cancer, and their results have the potential to open-up brand-new treatment approaches for patients with the hard-to-treat lung cancer, SCLC.
Their work could also lead to much greater things - the teams chose to tackle SCLC first because of the urgent need of these patients for new therapies, but if this new approach for improving immunotherapy is proven to be effective, it could potentially be rolled out as a powerful new treatment to help people with other types of cancer too.
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