C10691: Novel Peptides as a Melanoma Vaccine Value Proposition:
• Phosphopeptides for use as vaccines for therapy and prevention of melanoma
• Phosphopeptides for robust, diverse, and long-lasting anti-tumor immunity
• Specific activity against whole melanoma tumor cells in vitro
• Stand alone therapy/Combination Therapy
• Adoptive T-cell transfer therapy
• Antibodies for diagnosis of melanoma
Technical Details:
BACKGROUND
Skin cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in the world. Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer with more than 60,000 new diagnoses and greater than 8,000 deaths annually in the U.S. While this is a serious and life-threatening cancer, with early detection and treatment the prognosis is quite good. However, if left untreated melanoma can grow deeply into the skin and can also metastasize to other parts of the body where it is difficult to treat.
Immunotherapy is a promising approach to melanoma therapy, since there is ample evidence that melanomas can be recognized by the immune system. A variety of melanoma vaccines have been tested in the clinic, including those formulated with synthetic peptides, recombinant proteins, recombinant plasmid and viral vectors, and whole tumor cells. These have benefited less than 5% of patients with advanced metastatic disease, and their efficacy in the adjuvant setting is unclear. The lack of efficacy and beneficial treatments available provides a significant unmet medical need.
TECHNOLOGY
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and University of Virginia have identified novel phosphopeptides for use as a melanoma vaccine. Phosphopeptides are a new category of tumor-derived peptides often linked to proteins with vital cellular functions and incorporating CD4+ T cell activity into cancer immunotherapy strategies is critically important in generating robust, diverse, long-lasting anti-tumor immunity. While characterizing specific phosphopeptides for optimal and selective targets for CD4+ T cells, specific MART-1 peptides were identified as new targets for cancer immunotherapy. MART-1 is a well studied melanoma-associated protein that is expressed by the vast majority of melanoma tumors. The phosphopeptides were isolated from human melanoma cell lines and have been identified as antigenic phosphoepitopes displayed in the context of MHC II molecules that are recognized by CD4+ T cells. The peptides therefore provide a melanoma specific target that can be recognized by the immune system offer an ideal target for vaccine therapeutics.
Looking for Partners:
Commercially, the disclosed peptides could be used to develop melanoma and cancer based vaccines, melanoma specific antibodies for diagnosis, and peptide tetramers for detecting melanoma-specific CD4+ T cells.
Publications/Associated Cases:
Depontieu, F. R., Qian, J., Zarling, A. L., McMiller, T. L., Salay, T. M., Norris, A., et al. (2009). Identification of tumor-associated, MHC class II-restricted phosphopeptides as targets for immunotherapy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(29), 12073-12078
