The non-profit cancer research foundation Cancer Antibodies Inc., will be presenting their breakthrough method to detect unique antigenic targets on the surface of cancer cells at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
May 31, 2022
The non-profit cancer research foundation Cancer Antibodies Inc., will be presenting their breakthrough method to detect unique antigenic targets on the surface of cancer cells at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Cancer Antibodies Inc. was founded by Dr. Elliot Davis to fund and develop novel ways to make cancer therapies more targeted and reduce or eliminate the often terrible side effects of treatment.
All cells, including cancer cells, have areas on the cell surface called antigens. An epitope is the part of the antigen to which antibodies bind. If unique cancer-specific surface antigens or epitopes (oncotopes) are found, they can be targeted for the precision killing of cancer. Some of these tumor specific antigens, known as neo-antigens, form on cancer cells when certain mutations occur in tumor DNA and are targets for immunotherapy. The Cancer Antibodies Inc. novel platform can find multiple unique cancer-specific antigens, neo-antigens and oncotopes that exist only on cancer cells and not on normal cells. Therapeutic antibodies can be developed to target these unique antigenic sites.
Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in the developed world. It is a leading cause of death in the U.S. and around the world, with millions of people dying of the disease each year. Traditional cancer treatment strategies, including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and other drugs, focus mainly on either reducing the viability or inhibiting the growth of tumor cells. However, these traditional strategies have a vast number of potentially dangerous side effects, including the risk of developing a second cancer.
The main challenges to finding a cure for cancer are that, as mentioned, traditional cancer treatment strategies affect normal cells often leading to debilitating side effects. In addition, as the cancer grows and spreads, the tumor cell DNA mutates further making targeted molecular therapies ineffective.
The new method from Cancer Antibodies Inc. offers a solution to both of these challenges: unique cancer specific antigens are targeted and normal cells are not affected and if the cancer cells mutate, the technique can be utilized to find new targets, such as neo-antigens, on the newly mutated cancer cells.
An abstract outlining the results of the study was published by ASCO on May 26, 2022. Highlights of the abstract include:
- Antibodies generated against a specific type of cancer can kill those cancer cells without harming normal cells from the same tissue type and the same person.
- These antibodies against one person’s cancer can kill the same cancer type from a different person.
- These antibodies surprisingly can also kill cancer cells of a different type than the kind they were derived against.
- Antibodies generated against one person’s cancer do not harm normal cells from a different person.
- The platform can generate antibodies against a variety of cancers.
Dr. Davis and his team will present the studies’ findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 5 from 8:00am-11:00am in Hall A, Poster: 186.