Grant: Project Grant

Vaccination has historically shown effectiveness in preventing morbidity caused by infectious diseases. Therefore, the notion of developing cancer vaccines remains appealing as a combinatory approach with current standard of care. Unfortunately however, a long list of vaccines tested so far has not been successful in achieving the hoped-for clinical outcome. As a result, the last decade has seen a significant array of optimization attempts including: i) enhancing the process of antigen presentation, ii) testing novel adjuvants, iii) searching for new antigens, or iv) developing strategies to improve T-cell signaling. Despite limited improvements, these studies shared in common the difficulty in triggering effective T-cell responses. The study described herein will highlight the utility and potency of engineered mesenchymal stromal cells at stimulating T cells. The establishment of such technology will circumvent the panoply of current challenges associated with standard dendritic cell protocols used in the formulation of cellular cancer vaccines. Furthermore, the acquired ability of these cells to up-take and process extracellular proteins and present immunogenic peptides could be exploited as a generic vaccination platform for a wide range of cancer types. In sum, optimizing and adopting such concept will strengthen multi-disciplinary collaborations and lead to the development of innovative vaccine strategies enabling: i) superior immune responsiveness to cancer using an unlimited off-the-self supply of antigen-presenting cells, and ii) the development of new tailored vaccine approaches amenable to the clinic as a means to reduce cancer relapse and/or emergence.