SBIR CONCEPT AWARD FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THERAPEUTIC OR PREVENTATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR TREATMENT OR PREVENTION OF PEDIATRIC CANCERS AND/OR RARE CANCERS

Metaclipse Therapeutics Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Metaclipse is developing a personalized immunotherapy priming stage followed by boosting with a neoantigen-based mRNA vaccine approach to treat nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), a rare and aggressive form of head and neck cancer. NPC is often diagnosed in the later stages of progression with a 10–15% recurrence rate and only a 5-year survival rate of 49%. New targeted therapies are urgently needed. Toripalimab, an anti-PD-1 antibody, was recently approved for NPC, but many patients respond poorly. This suggests a lack of sufficient tumor-specific T cells for Toripalimab to act on. Since the majority of NPC tumors are Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) positive, we will transfect murine squamous cell carcinoma cell line SCCVII with EBV antigens to develop an NPC model system.