Development of Salmonella vaccines for cancer and viruses

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

Investigators

Abstract

Salmonella are one of several different bacteria that have been shown to colonize solid tumors and are considered a leading contender for the development of bacterial-mediated cancer therapy. Live recombinant attenuated Salmonella can be used to deliver proteins, DNA plasmids or other molecules directly to solid tumors or the tumor microenvironment. Salmonella can be delivered orally, are inexpensive to produce and can elicit both mucosal and systemic immune responses. Our goal is too engineer a safe attenuated strain to target solid tumors either alone or in combination with other treatments such as chemotherapy or immunotherapy. Our collaborator, Dr Alana Welm at the Huntsman Institute, has several different in vivo models for metastasis in mice, including a model where human tumors can be transplanted into mice and go on to reproduce the same metastasis as seen in the patient. In addition, we are using established melanoma models in mice for initial screening of Salmonella strains.