Project description
Training lymphocytes to recognise tumour-specific antigens
Cancer treatment remains a significant medical challenge due to the diverse mutations and generated neoantigens in each tumour. As a result, immunotherapy has met limited clinical success. Funded by the European Innovation Council, the NEOpTTL project proposes a new approach – producing personalised tumour-trained lymphocytes (pTTL) harvested from regional lymph nodes. The method employs proprietary technologies such as machine learning to predict the most effective neoantigens in the tumour. The idea is that upon reinfusion into the patient, these pTTLs will identify tumour neoantigens and kill cancer cells. The therapy will be tested in patients with advanced colorectal cancer in a phase I/II clinical trial during the project.
Objective
NEOGAP has developed a groundbreaking personalised adoptive T cell therapy for treating solid tumours based on two proprietary technologies: PIOR® machine learning software and EpiTCer®. This cancer immunotherapy consists of producing personalised Tumour Trained Lymphocytes (pTTL), which are autologous T-cells harvested from regional lymph nodes, subjected to a neoantigen-driven T-cell stimulation technology to deliver highly tumour-reactive T-cell clones (pTTLs). pTTLs are re-infused to the patient where they infiltrate and kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells untouched. The therapy is broadly applicable to many cancer types, being personalised to each individual patient. In this EIC accelerator project, NEOGAP plans to complete a phase I/IIa clinical trial of the therapy in advanced colorectal cancer patients, focused on safety assessment and biomarker exploration and optimise the manufacturing process for the next clinical studies.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineering
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologycolorectal cancer
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologyimmunotherapy
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologies
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended FinanceCoordinator
171 76 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.