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While known and validated as non-responsive to conventional immune checkpoint inhibitors, our OT syngeneic mammary tumor model, which represents an aggressive model of human breast carcinoma, is characterized by the presence of at least two types of tumor-infiltrating immunosuppressive cells – myeloid suppressive cells (MSC) and T regulatory cells (Treg). Such cell populations are known, as a result, to suppress effector immune cell responses, thereby promoting tumor immune escape and metastasis.

Because of the success of previous shuttle sessions, which offered the opportunity to run efficacy studies in a cost-saving manner, Explicyte is planning a new shuttle on the CT26 tumor-bearing mouse model, which will take place in October.

In vivo glioma mouse model recapitulating key human glioblastoma characteristics provide an invaluable resource to assess novel immunotherapy-based strategies aiming at bolstering immune system functions to ultimately improve treatment outcome.

As in the previous shuttle session, Explicyte will plan a new shuttle on the CT26 tumor-bearing mouse model, which will be held in July.
 

Initiation of an anti-tumor immune response and further cancer cell elimination is a key step in cancer immunosurveillance. One of the current promising challenges in cancer immunotherapy is the potentiation of the specific attack of tumor cells by the immune system. Interestingly, in vitro immune cell killing is recognized as perhaps the most relevant functional measure to evaluate the ability of a candidate compound to promote such an effector function of immune cells.
 

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive primary brain tumor. Despite multimodal treatment strategies with surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, the prognosis of GBM patients remains dismal. GBM are characterized by a high immune cells infiltration including myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), microglia or regulatory T cells (Tregs), all of them contributing to the creation of an immunosuppressive micro-environment. While manipulating the immune system to restore its anti-tumor activity have shown efficacy in many cancers, immunotherapy figures as an attractive therapeutic option for glioblastoma and several clinical trials are currently ongoing.
 

Strong to the unprecedented clinical benefit offered by immune checkpoint blockade (Ipilimumab, Nivolumab, Pembrolizumab) cancer immunotherapy gained high interest in drug development.
 

After a full session in September, the next explicyte shuttle – anti-PD1 / anti-PDL1 syngeneic mouse models – is scheduled for the 25th of October.

The explicyte shuttle is a standardized study protocol in which you can include experimental groups in an already programmed study. Explicyte will cover the costs of the vehicle control group + the standard reference and sponsor will only cover its experimental groups.
 

Cancer immunoediting is a dynamic process which consists in three phases including elimination, equilibrium and tumor immune escape. During the elimination step there is an engagement of effector cells such as natural killer or T cells which initiate tumor cell death – an event defective in case of tumor progression. Such key mechanism thus warrants investigation to optimize immune cell mediated killing of tumor cell. To this aim, we developed immune / tumor cells co-culture on a 96-well throughput platform to evaluate the capacity of candidate compounds to promote immune cell dependent tumor cell death alone and/or in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.