The Week India - July 29, 2018

34 THE WEEK · JULY 29, 2018

HEALTH

COVER STORY

were completely tumour free

and then re-challenged those

mice again with the same tu-

mour cells, and none of them

developed tumours. They were

completely protected against the

tumour challenge, meaning that

they now had immune-memory

against the tumour,” clarifi es

Sagiv-Barfi.

The vaccine was tested on 90

different mice, and the results

were better than expected, with

all traces of cancer effectively

eliminated in 87 of the mice,

including distant untreated me-

tastases.

Human trials

This new vaccine is entering

human trials. The plan is to en-

rol 15 patients with low grade

lymphoma. Sagiv-Barfi says,

“The reason we chose lympho-

ma for the fi rst trial is that we

have conducted trials with CpG

in lymphoma, it is the cancer of

the immune system and easier to

monitor response in an indolent

subset of patients.”

One of the goals of the planned

clinical trial is to assess the safety

of the combination. Both re-

agents have already been tested

in clinical trials as single agents

and were well tolerated. The

trial will use one in hundredth

of the dose that was used for

systemic administration of anti-

OX40 since they will be inject-

ing directly into the tumour. This

targeted approach may also aid

in avoiding harsh side effects.

“We plan to open a new trial

to solid tumours if this trial is

safe and successful”, adds Sagiv-

Barfi.

What is so different about this

solution? The study published

in the Science Translational

Medicine bypassed the need

to identify tumour-specifi c im-

mune targets, or customisation

of a patient’s immune cells or

activation of the entire immune

system. Unlike in methods in-

volving adoptive cell transfer,

where there is an actual transfer

of cells to the patient that origi-

nated from the tumour or engi-

neered to the CAR T-cells and

expanded outside the body, the

new vaccine study led by Levy

and Sagiv-Barfi stimulated T-

cells within the patient’s body

to cause an immune response

against the tumour without the

need to transfer any cells.

“This is not a personalised

therapy, so hopefully the price

tag will not be as high,” says

Sagiv-Barfi. If the trial is success-

ful, the treatment could be use-

ful in many types of tumours.

The researchers are hopeful that

this can be used in future cancer

therapy. ◆