Novel peptide sequences identified from breast, prostate, and bladder cancers are utilized as targets for anti-tumor vaccines. Local therapy such as surgical exicision or ablation by radiation is a mainstay for the treatment of primary cancer and is...

Novel peptide sequences identified from breast, prostate, and bladder cancers are utilized as targets for anti-tumor vaccines.
Local therapy such as surgical exicision or ablation by radiation is a mainstay for the treatment of primary cancer and is curative for a percentage of the patients. However, many malignancies will recur locally or at a distant site. Thus, the prevention or cure of metastases represents a major challenge in clinical oncology. The current invention harnesses the immune system to combat cancer by the activation of endogenous T cell response against the tumors and their metastasis and might offer long-term protection against relapse.

Applications

• Vaccines against various types of cancer.
• Possible adjuvant therapy for the treatment of tumor metastases.

Advantanges

• Specific TAAs are discovered using a transgenic mice approach, which is more robust than conventional methods that use CTL lines. 

Technology's Essence

Some of the key factors involved in facilitating specific immunological response against tumors and their metastases are unique tumor associated antigens (TAAs). Most known TAAs are Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes. CTL directed against such antigens constitute powerful effectors of the immune system against tumors or infectious agents. Clinical investigations have focused on generation of anti-tumor CTL responses, by introduction of tumor-specific TAAs as peptide vaccines. The outlined method enables the use of such vaccines for the prevention and immunotherapy of various types of malignancies.

Granted US 7084249; 7531629 ID: 0009858