Mal-Peg-PLGA from PolySciTech used in development of combination immunotherapy for cancer treatment.

One of the more promising methods to treat cancer is the application of immunotherapy. Simply put, this is training the human immune system to attack the cancerous cells as though they were pathogens. There are significant advantages to this technique over other methods that rely on an external agent which kills the cancer cells in that the immune system can attack the cancer throughout the body without damaging normal cells. Recently, researchers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill used Mal-PEG-PLGA (PolyVivo AI110) and mPEG-PLGA (AK029) from PolySciTech (www.polyscitech.com) to generate immunotherapy nanoparticles for cancer treatment. This research holds promise to provide for improved therapies against cancer. Read more: Mi, Yu, Christof C. Smith, Feifei Yang, Yanfei Qi, Kyle C. Roche, Jonathan S. Serody, Benjamin G. Vincent, and Andrew Z. Wang. "A Dual Immunotherapy Nanoparticle Improves T‐Cell Activation and Cancer Immunotherapy." Advanced Materials (2018): 1706098. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.201706098

“Abstract: Combination immunotherapy has recently emerged as a powerful cancer treatment strategy. A promising treatment approach utilizes coadministration of antagonistic antibodies to block checkpoint inhibitor receptors, such as antiprogrammed cell death‐1 (aPD1), alongside agonistic antibodies to activate costimulatory receptors, such as antitumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member 4 (aOX40). Optimal T‐cell activation is achieved when both immunomodulatory agents simultaneously engage T‐cells and promote synergistic proactivation signaling. However, standard administration of these therapeutics as free antibodies results in suboptimal T‐cell binding events, with only a subset of the T‐cells binding to both aPD1 and aOX40. Here, it is shown that precise spatiotemporal codelivery of aPD1 and aOX40 using nanoparticles (NP) (dual immunotherapy nanoparticles, DINP) results in improved T‐cell activation, enhanced therapeutic efficacy, and increased immunological memory. It is demonstrated that DINP elicits higher rates of T‐cell activation in vitro than free antibodies. Importantly, it is demonstrated in two tumor models that combination immunotherapy administered in the form of DINP is more effective than the same regimen administered as free antibodies. This work demonstrates a novel strategy to improve combination immunotherapy using nanotechnology.”

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