Investigating anti-tumour T cell responses in nasopharyngeal carcinoma to refine vaccine-based immunotherapies

研究鼻咽癌的抗肿瘤 T 细胞反应以完善基于疫苗的免疫疗法

• 批准号: MR/P013201/1
• 负责人: Paul Murray
• 金额: $ 24.89万
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FP013201%2F1
• 关键词: Investigating; anti; tumour; cell; responses

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a type of cancer that occurs at the back of the nose. It is unusually common in some parts of the world, including countries like Malaysia where it constitutes a very significant health problem. NPC can be cured, but in many cases the cancer comes back and this is usually fatal. Furthermore, patients who do survive are often left with significant long-term side effects caused by the toxic treatments. Therefore, new treatments are needed to reduce deaths from NPC and improve the quality of life for survivors. All patients with NPC have a virus, known as the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV for short, in their tumour cells. We have developed a vaccine that can recognise EBV with the aim of boosting the patients' own immune response to the tumour. Early tests of our vaccine in people show that it is safe and that it can boost immunity against the virus. In this proposal we want to understand more about immunity to EBV in patients with NPC so that we can modify how we deliver our vaccine and eventually combine it with other drugs to improve its therapeutic effects. To do this we will be using new sequencing technologies to probe how patient's T cells, the body's main weapon against virus-infected cells, respond to EBV, for example before and after treatment, enabling us to 'track' individual T cell responses over time. At the same time, we will explore the nature of potential inhibitory pathways present in the tumour so that we might eventually target these in combination with our vaccine making it more effective.

鼻咽癌（NPC）是一种发生在鼻后部的癌症。它在世界某些地区非常常见，包括像马来西亚这样的国家，它构成了一个非常严重的健康问题。鼻咽癌可以治愈，但在许多情况下癌症会复发，这通常是致命的。此外，幸存的患者往往会因有毒治疗而留下严重的长期副作用。因此，需要新的治疗方法来减少鼻咽癌死亡并提高幸存者的生活质量。所有鼻咽癌患者的肿瘤细胞中都含有一种病毒，称为 Epstein-Barr 病毒，简称 EBV。我们开发了一种可以识别 EBV 的疫苗，旨在增强患者自身对肿瘤的免疫反应。我们的疫苗对人体的早期测试表明它是安全的，并且可以增强对病毒的免疫力。在本提案中，我们希望更多地了解 NPC 患者对 EBV 的免疫力，以便我们能够修改疫苗的接种方式，并最终将其与其他药物结合起来以提高其治疗效果。为此，我们将使用新的测序技术来探测患者的 T 细胞（人体对抗病毒感染细胞的主要武器）如何对 EBV 做出反应，例如在治疗之前和之后，使我们能够随着时间的推移“跟踪”个体 T 细胞的反应。与此同时，我们将探索肿瘤中存在的潜在抑制途径的性质，以便我们最终可以将这些途径与我们的疫苗结合起来，使其更加有效。