Breanna DiAndreth, PhD, on Improving Selective Targeting of Tumor Cells

"Our 2 lead clinical programs right now target carcinoembryonic antigen and mesothelin, which are targets that have been studied before with serious toxicities and adverse events. What we can speculate from this data and what the authors of these clinical trials think is that these are on-target off-tumor toxicities. So, what we could do is bring our blocker in to basically protect those normal tissues.”

Amidst the prevalence of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies in indications in hematologic malignancies, solid tumors remain an unmet need that cell therapies have not yet achieved strong responses in. A2 Biotherapeutics is tackling this issue with the use of their dual-receptor Tmod cell therapies that can selectively target tumor cells with HLA-A*02 loss of heterozygosity.

Two lead targets being explored with Tmod cell technology are carcinoembryonic antigen and mesothelin. The therapies are designed to spare healthy tissue expressing these antigens by only attacking tumor cells with the loss of heterozygosity.

Data on the Tmod technology were presented by Breanna DiAndreth, PhD, scientist II, A2 Biotherapeutics at the Onco Cell Therapy Summit (OCTS) USA 2022, held June 29-30 in Boston, Massachusetts. CGTLive spoke with DiAndreth to learn more about the safety advantages of the dual-targeting approach and the technology’s potential to address unmet needs in solid tumors.

REFERENCE

DiAndreth A. The Tmod dual-signal integrator transforms CAR-Ts directed at tumor associated antigens into cancer-selective therapeutics. Presented at: OCTS USA 2022, June 29-30, Boston, MA.