Grant Award Details
- This project explore the use of iPSCs for making off-the-shelf universal dendritic cells that can be dressed with a patient's own tumor antigens for a personalized immunotherapeutic approach.
Grant Application Details
- Development of universal off-the-shelf iPSC derived dendritic cells for use as patient specific anti-tumor vaccine
Research Objective
This proposal aims to develop a novel cell based vaccine for the treatment of cancer. The vaccine would be derived from stem cells and be personalized to the genetics of the patient and their cancer.
Impact
Success would provide proof-of-principle of a novel cell based therapy for cancers broadly. It is expected to overcome limitations of current immune-based strategies in cancer therapy.
Major Proposed Activities
- Differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells to antigen presenting cells
- Development of universal antigen presenting cells
- Transfer of patient specific tumor antigens to universal antigen presenting cells
- Optimization of cell presentation and activation of tumor antigen directed immune cells
If successful, the results of these studies will be translatable to a therapeutic that would be developed here in California. Such a therapy could be immediately beneficial to a very large number of patients here in California who suffer from currently deadly and incurable cancers. Furthermore, concepts learned will have utility in development of related strategies for an even broader range of disease types.