Axis (3) Anti-tumor Immunotherapy
Coordinated by N. Labarrière et F. Lang
This axis aims at developing innovative immunotherapeutic strategies, for therapeutic vaccination of adoptive T cell transfer in cancer patients. We are currently working on a research project to improve therapeutic vaccination of melanoma patients based on synthetic long peptides, starting notably from MELOE-1 as a model antigen. In the field of adoptive T cell transfer, our team has a privileged collaboration with the Team of Pr Dreno (Team 2, CRCINA), making easier to set up clinical trials in melanoma patients. As an example, a phase I/II clinical trial of adoptive transfer of Melan-A and MELOE-1 specific CD8 T lymphocytes, originating from our results and unique in Europe, is currently ongoing at the Nantes University hospital
(Labarriere et al., 2013). Another objective of this axis concerns the optimization of the functional properties of specific T cells used for adoptive cell transfer. With this in mind, we showed that the addition of an anti-PD-1 blocking antibody during the process of selection and expansion of antigen specific T lymphocytes favored the preferential expansion of high avidity T cells (Simon et al., 2015). This new procedure has been patented and PD-1 gene inactivation in these high avidity T cells is currently in progress.
