CombiVir: combinatorial engineering of therapeutic viruses

CombiVir：治疗性病毒的组合工程

• 批准号: 10075500
• 金额: $ 6.36万
• 依托单位: STRATOSVIR LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Grant for R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10075500
• 关键词: CombiVir; combinatorial; engineering; therapeutic; viruses

Curing cancer though stimulation of a patient's own immune system has long been a pipedream. However, recent advances have shown that two novel classes of therapies (checkpoint inhibitor drugs; CAR-T cell therapy) can achieve exactly that, albeit in very small subsets of patients and with sometimes significant side-effects. Encouraged by these results a host of further immunotherapies are urgently being pursued, both academically and in industry, to capitalise and expand on these findings. One highly promising therapy is oncolytic virus immunotherapy (OVI). Selective replication of viruses within tumours drives tumour cell death leading to release of cancer-specific antigens. Viruses trigger an immune response in tumours while delivering therapeutic payloads that stimulate immune cells within the tumour. Because these payloads are only produced within the tumour they will not have the undesired effects they currently display upon bloodstream infusion. Here we use a synthetic biology approach to engineer a novel gene expressing virus that makes great use of unique characteristics of Vaccinia virus to become a disruptive technology in the treatment of cancer.

通过刺激患者自身的免疫系统来治愈癌症长期以来一直是一个梦想。然而，最近的进展表明，两类新型疗法（检查点抑制剂药物；CAR-T 细胞疗法）可以完全实现这一目标，尽管只针对极少数患者，并且有时会产生明显的副作用。受这些结果的鼓舞，学术界和工业界正在迫切寻求一系列进一步的免疫疗法，以利用和扩展这些发现。一种非常有前途的疗法是溶瘤病毒免疫疗法（OVI）。肿瘤内病毒的选择性复制驱动肿瘤细胞死亡，导致癌症特异性抗原的释放。病毒触发肿瘤中的免疫反应，同时提供刺激肿瘤内免疫细胞的治疗有效载荷。因为这些有效负载仅在肿瘤内产生，所以它们不会产生目前在血流输注时表现出的不良影响。在这里，我们使用合成生物学方法来设计一种新型基因表达病毒，该病毒充分利用痘苗病毒的独特特性，成为治疗癌症的颠覆性技术。