Current anticancer approaches, such as antibody or CAR T-cell therapies, rely on targeting tumor-associated antigens rather than tumor-specific antigens, with the consequent on-target, off-tumor effects.
Tumor immunotherapy has become a standard of care for treating various cancers, with immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting the PD-L1/PD-1 axis proving particularly effective. While PD-L1 expression on tumor cells is a predictive biomarker for therapeutic response, emerging evidence highlights the importance of PD-L1 expression on myeloid cells, such as monocytes and dendritic cells (DCs), in shaping the tumor microenvironment and influencing the success of checkpoint blockade.
A study has demonstrated the potential of a novel ligand-based CAR T-cell therapy for targeting CD7-positive T-cell malignancies, including T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and T-cell lymphomas. The receptor CD7 is a prominent target antigen, being expressed in around 95% of T-ALL, 50% of peripheral T-cell lymphomas and 10% of acute myeloid leukemias.
Radiopharmaceuticals can offer a targeted approach for cancers that have limited therapeutical options. Abdera Therapeutics Inc. recently presented results of their novel 5T4-targeted radiopharmaceutical.
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), when overactive or overexpressed, may lead to tumor growth and spread, and is thus a robust target for therapy.
Traditional neoantigen prediction methods primarily rely on HLA-peptide binding databases, often producing false positives. This challenge highlights the need for improved strategies to identify truly immunogenic neoantigens. Neoantigen-based cancer vaccines have shown promising efficacy in recent clinical trials for treating solid tumors, offering a potential solution.
Both IL-15 and IL-2 are good options for cancer therapy, but IL-15 is considered superior due to lower vascular endothelial toxicity, stronger ability to expand natural killer and CD8+ T cells and weaker stimulation of T regulatory cells, but it has a short half-life and exerts severe adverse effects.
A recent study explored the therapeutic potential of hu128.1, a humanized antibody targeting transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1), in treating erythroleukemia using xenograft mouse models. The results demonstrate that hu128.1 exerts strong antitumor activity against human erythroleukemic (ERY-1) cells, highlighting its promise as a candidate for managing this aggressive cancer.
Folate receptor α (FOLR1) is highly expressed in the surface of tumoral cells in several cancer types, while it shows limited expression in normal tissues. CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. has developed a next-generation antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting FOLR1 – SYS-6041 – for the treatment of mid-to-low FOLR1-expressing tumors.
Drug resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors, occurring via secondary mutations or bypass pathways, is frequent among non-small-cell lung cancer patients.
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