{"id":2248,"date":"2023-07-18T20:04:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T00:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/news-and-events\/identification-of-tumor-specific-antigens-to-develop-therapeutic-vaccines-against-acute-myeloid-and-lymphoid-leukemias\/"},"modified":"2024-09-25T16:25:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:25:37","slug":"identification-of-tumor-specific-antigens-to-develop-therapeutic-vaccines-against-acute-myeloid-and-lymphoid-leukemias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/news-and-events\/identification-of-tumor-specific-antigens-to-develop-therapeutic-vaccines-against-acute-myeloid-and-lymphoid-leukemias\/","title":{"rendered":"Identification of Tumor Specific Antigens to Develop Therapeutic Vaccines Against Acute Myeloid and Lymphoid Leukemias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Challenge:<\/strong> Acute myeloid and lymphoid leukemias (AML and ALL) are lethal hematologic cancers that affect both children and adults. Despite major progress in the treatment of pediatric AML and ALL, relapse and disease progression in patients with high-risk disease remain common problems. Furthermore, current drugs and radiotherapy treatments are associated with a wide array of long-term side effects. The idea that T-cell responses can induce remission of acute leukemias is now supported by several lines of evidence. This raises the possibility that tumor-specific antigens (TSAs) expressed in tumors could be identified and used to develop cancer vaccines. To date, such specific antigens have not been identified in leukemias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong> In order to discover human TSAs, the team has developed a high-throughput approach allowing identification of TSAs derived from any types of genetic alterations, including TSAs expressed from allegedly non-coding regions of the genome (cryptic). Using this innovative method based on next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics, the researchers were able to eliminate putative TSAs that are also expressed in normal cells, thus generating a repertoire of true tumor-specific antigens for human AML and ALL. In addition, the team evaluated whether the immunogenicity of actionable candidates can be enhanced using phosphatase inhibitors (PI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Expected Achievements\/Impact:<\/strong>\u00a0The team identified 94 tumor antigens that represent attractive targets for acute leukemia immunotherapy. Many of them are able to stimulate the immune system and their expression in patients correlates with improved survival. Moreover, PI-treated dendritic cells have improved immune cell activation. Preventive vaccines against various pathogens represent the most cost-effective way to save lives. These findings should have a transformative impact on treatment of ALs. The results of this project also contributed to the creation of Epitopea, a spin off company that will be devoted to the development of TSA-based vaccines and of TSA-specific T-cell receptors for AML therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table is-style-stripes\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Principal Investigator:<\/strong><br><strong>Claude Perreault<\/strong><br>Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Co-investigators<\/strong><br><strong>Pierre Thibault,<\/strong><br><strong>S\u00e9bastien Lemieux<br><\/strong>Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al<br><strong>Michel Tremblay<\/strong><br>McGill University<br><strong>Xavier Roucou<\/strong><br>Universit\u00e9 de Sherbrooke<br><strong>Jean-S\u00e9bastien Delisle<\/strong><br>Centre de recherche de<br>l\u2019H\u00f4pital Maisonneuve-Rosemont<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong><strong><strong><strong>Completed&nbsp;<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>Project<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>$ 1,500,000 \/ 3 years<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Supported by CQDM through:<\/strong><br>&#8211; MEI<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>And by co-funding partners:<\/strong><br>&#8211; Oncopole<br>&#8211;\u00a0Cancer Research Society<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Challenge: Acute myeloid and lymphoid leukemias (AML and ALL) are lethal hematologic cancers that affect both children and adults. Despite major progress in the treatment of pediatric AML and ALL, relapse and disease progression in patients with high-risk disease remain common problems. Furthermore, current drugs and radiotherapy treatments are associated with a wide array of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4785,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions\/4785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cqdm.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}