Disease-specific Oncolytic Virotherapy Development
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Speaking of cancer treatment, specifically, cancer immunotherapy is one that utilizes certain parts of person's immune system to fight cancer. Based on plenty of scientific researches, it is shown that cells and molecules of the immune system are fundamental components of the tumor environment that can recognize and eliminate the malignant cells by eliciting an immune response. Basically, cancer immunotherapy can enhance host immunity to recognize and eliminate malignant cells either by stimulating a specific component of the immune system or counteracting immune suppressive signals in the tumor microenvironment. On the basis of these findings, numerous successes have been achieved such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, therapeutic antitumor antibody, CAR/TCR modified T cell therapy, natural killer (NK) cells therapy, dendritic cell therapy and oncolytic virotherapy.
Due to the in-depth knowledge of immunology and tumor biology, scientists of Creative Biolabs keep devoting endless effort to the development of immunotherapy strategies and reagents aiming at specific categories and features of various cancers. To our knowledge, both immunologic and cancer biologic approaches must be incorporated to enhance the efficacy of anticancer therapy, and this will always be a challenge for the next generation of cancer immunotherapy. Based upon the molecular mechanisms and other proved evidence that underline the pathogenesis of specific type of cancer, our scientists are now developing immunotherapy for melanoma, genitourinary malignancies, hepatocellular carcinoma, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, brain cancer, mesothelioma, etc.
Relying on our well-established OncoVirapy™ platform, we take oncolytic virus as the lead in disease-specific immunotherapy strategy development in Creative Biolabs. Oncolytic virus is a class of cancer biotherapeutics that uses replication-competent virus designed or selected to specifically infect and destroy tumor cells without harming normal tissues. The use of virus as a treatment for cancer can be traced back to the 1900s, and it was not until the discovery of recombinant DNA technology and genetic mechanisms underlined cancers, which enable the genetic engineering of virus to be handled safely in the treatment, that the therapeutic strategies involving oncolytic virus rise again as a promising field to discover in cancer immunotherapy. Recently, it was reported that oncolytic virotherapy with talimogene laherparepvec may impact on cytotoxic T cell infiltration and therapeutic efficacy of the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab thus improving the immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy by changing the tumor microenvironment.
After fully investigation into a specific type of cancer in terms of the pathogenesis, abnormal molecular pathway, disease progress and existing evidence, both the nature of the virus and molecular mechanisms of cancer development will be exploited for better tumor selectivity, enhanced anticancer efficacy, lower immunogenicity, and other biosafety issues that should be taken into account when designing the therapeutic oncolytic virus. Following systematic consideration, the well-designed recombinant virus will be constructed and then undergo a series of in vitro assays to test the replication capacity, tumor cell killing ability, and also the expression and function of the transgene. Furthermore, a comprehensive and rational design of in vivo study will be performed to fully validate the therapeutic effect of oncolytic virus in related disease models. In addition, proof-of-concept study for combination therapeutic strategy is also available on our platform. Overall, Creative Biolabs will keep optimizing and expanding our services in cancer immunotherapy to meet the demand of next generation of cancer therapy.