Aldehyde-modified Antigens for the Immunotherapy of adenocarcinomas

Funded Activity Summary

The incidence of breast cancer in women is 1 in 8 and the frequency of other cancers are rising. Even with conventional approaches such as surgery, cytotoxic therapy, radiotherapy and combination therapy only a few cancers are treatable. The development of a cancer vaccine will greatly benefit humanity similar to childhood and adult vaccinations for preventing infectious disease. In this proposal we intend to chemically modify a synthetic protein called mucin 1 (MUC1) which is exprssed on cells in breast cancer to make it more immunogenic - that is make it look more like a foreign protein so that the immune cells can make antibodies or killer cells that recognise it. These activated cells can now migrate to the tumour sites and kill the invading tumour. In order to do this we are going to introduce mannose, a particular sugar that can bind to important white blood cells and an aldehyde group that can activate immune cells. We will test the effectiveness of the modified proteins in mice to see if they can generate an good immune. If this is satisfactory then we will see if mice are vaccinated with these modified proteins can reject implanted mouse or human tumours. If these experiments are successful further work can be done with human cells and later clinical trials. Any methods developed here will be applicable to other cancers and also infectious diseases.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2004

End Date: 01-01-2006

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $284,250.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Clinical chemistry (incl. diagnostics)

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

T cell immunity | cancer and related disorders | cell mediated immunity | mucins | tumour immunotherapy | tumour vaccine | vaccination immunology

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