Need2immune · Personalized liposomal cancer vaccines within days by rapid formulation screening
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
- EU contribution
- €162,806
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-SE
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Results in brief
Personalized liposomal cancer vaccines within days by rapid formulation screening
Cancer immunotherapy is defined as the ability to mobilise the host’s own immune system to kill cancer, has recently taken a central role within mainstream oncology. This period has seen unprecedented clinical responses in patients coinciding with the development of novel classes of immunotherapeutic drugs. One of the challenges in the future will be to understand how best to administer these molecules since the current approach of systemic administration harbours the risk of causing serious toxicity and/or autoimmunity. Currently, cancer immunotherapies are injected into the bloodstream where there are many drawbacks. It could be more effective therefore to inject this kind of therapy locally and directly to target tumour cells with also for lower doses to be administered. The overall goal of this project was therefore to use microneedles to deliver LOCAL nanoparticle doses of combined immunotherapies, as the focus of a novel approach to developing new strategies for delivery of onco-immunotherapeutic agents. In this project a hollow microneedle system was developed for LOCAL delivery of nanoparticles, by which immunomodulatory were injected into tumours. Furthermore, a wide range of lipid nanoparticles were synthesized in this project, which incorporated near-infrared fluorescent dyes and immune modulating agents. These nanoparticles were tested on cell cultures and animals for the induction of cancer-specific immune responses and tumour control. The results that were obtained in these studies proved that cationic nanoparticle formulations injected LOCAL resulted in superior immune responses and tumour regression. The overall conclusion of this project is that novel knowledge was developed to more rationally design procedures for optimal delivery and efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Cancer immunotherapy, defined as the ability to mobilise the host’s own immune system to kill cancer, has recently within the last 5 years, taken a central role within mainstream oncology. This period has seen the field rapidly accelerate towards unprecedented clinical responses in patients, and the development of novel classes of immunotherapeutic drugs. One approach has been to design more personalised immunotherapies along with new methods in delivering the therapeutic cargo. It is anticipated that this will play a defining role for cancer immunotherapy in terms of how to better achieve sustained remissions or complete eradication. One of the challenges in the future will be to understand how to administer these molecules since the current approach of systemic administration harbours the risk of causing serious toxicity and/or autoimmunity. This could drastically lower the serum levels of immune reagents needed with a decrease in adverse effects and lower risk of autoimmune reactions, without losing systemic efficacy. Currently, cancer immunotherapies are injected into the bloodstream but systemic injections have many drawbacks. It could be more effective therefore to inject this kind of therapy locally and directly to target tumour cells. This proposal will be to implement a more direct approach, where the immunotherapy's effects could be more easily controlled, with also the possibility for lower doses to be administered. Recently, microneedles have been attracting attention as new drug delivery tools. The microneedle has already been shown to be a highly effective intradermal and transdermal vaccine delivery method due to its mechanism of action, painlessness and ease of use. The goal is therefore to use microneedles to deliver localised doses of combination immunotherapies, e.g. vaccine with checkpoint modulators, in nanoparticles, as the focus of a novel approach to developing new strategies for the trackable delivery of onco-immunotherapeutic agents.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- TECODEVELOPMENT GMBH · RheinbachCoordinatorGermany
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union