Immunotherapy That Converts Glioblastoma Cells Into Immune Cells to Attack Cancerous Tumors

Converts Cancer Cells to Immune Cells that Recruit Body’s Own Immune System to Target Brain Tumors

This immunotherapy directly reprograms cancer cells into immune cells, specifically dendritic cells, making the reprogrammed cancer cells a therapy for the rest of the tumor. Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and lethal brain cancer in adults. Fewer than 5 percent of patients with glioblastoma survive 5 years after diagnosis. Available treatments have failed to extend patient lives significantly, thus there is an urgent need to develop new and effective treatments. Immunotherapy enhances the body’s natural defenses to fight disease, making it an effective treatment for cancer in recent years. Dendritic cells play a major role in priming cancer-specific immune responses but have difficulty trafficking to reach brain tumors. Other barriers to current methods of dendritic cell immunotherapy include the difficulty with isolating and generating effective dendritic cells and the high cost of cell-based immunotherapy.

Using their AI platform for identifying gene networks and master gene regulators useful for precision medicine, researchers at the University of Florida have identified an optimal combination of master genetic fate determinants to convert cancer cells to dendritic cells. Their reprogrammed cells can be used as an in-situ vaccination against the tumor.

Application

Immunotherapy to reprogram cancer cells directly to immune cells, using the body’s natural immune defenses to target solid tumors.

Advantages

• Converts tumor cells directly to immune cells, providing access to the tumor microenvironment otherwise difficult to infiltrate
• Converted immune cells recruit the patient’s own immune system to attack the tumor from the inside
• Targeted therapy to treat the tumor, avoiding systemic administration of toxic compounds to treat cancer

Technology

Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy involves providing patients a vaccine of their own dendritic cells reprogrammed directly from their own tumor cells right in the tumor microenvironment, allowing these reprogrammed dendritic cells with full and ready access to tumor neoantigens to activate the immune system. In essence, this technology converts cancer cells into their own therapy. A barrier in cell reprogramming is the lack of knowledge about genetic expression patterns controlling cell fate determination. Researchers at the University of Florida have employed an integrated deep-learning and gene network-based AI platform to identify the optimal combination of genetic cell fate determinants. Using the cell fate determinants, the researchers were able to develop a novel approach to reprogram GBM cells into immune cells as an in-situ vaccination approach. The researchers have demonstrated this approach successfully in animal models.