AACR, Author Interviews, Cancer Research / 19.12.2019
Neoantigens Can Stimulate Immunity in Relapsed Multiple Myeloma
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Parekh[/caption]
Dr. Samir Parekh, MBBS
Associate Professor
Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly describe what is meant by 'neoantigens'? How might they be used to stimulate immunity in a multiple myeloma patients?
Response: Myeloma is considered a “cold” tumor for immunotherapy (as compared to some solid tumors such as melanoma) given the relatively fewer DNA mutations in an average myeloma patient. Our clinical experience suggests that this may not be totally correct. Our findings focus on mutations that can become antigens (neo-antigens) and challenges the stereotype. We can create vaccines based on peptides resulting from these mutations to stimulate immune responses.
Dr. Parekh[/caption]
Dr. Samir Parekh, MBBS
Associate Professor
Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly describe what is meant by 'neoantigens'? How might they be used to stimulate immunity in a multiple myeloma patients?
Response: Myeloma is considered a “cold” tumor for immunotherapy (as compared to some solid tumors such as melanoma) given the relatively fewer DNA mutations in an average myeloma patient. Our clinical experience suggests that this may not be totally correct. Our findings focus on mutations that can become antigens (neo-antigens) and challenges the stereotype. We can create vaccines based on peptides resulting from these mutations to stimulate immune responses.
Dr. Crombie[/caption]
Dr. Jennifer Crombie MD
Instructor in Medicine
Harvard Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: New data from our investigator-sponsored Phase 1 study exploring duvelisib in combination with venetoclax will be presented at ASH on December 7. In relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL), duvelisib plus venetoclax demonstrated promising clinical activity, a manageable tolerability profile, and identified a recommended Phase 2 dosing (RP2D) regimen. 
Dr. Qing Chen[/caption]
Qing Chen, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program
Scientific Director, Imaging Facility
The Wistar Institute
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We are focusing on how a specific type of brain cells, astrocytes, helps the cancer cells from melanoma and breast cancer to form metastatic lesions.
Prof. Satchi-Fainaro[/caption]
Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, PhD
Head, Cancer Research and Nanomedicine Laboratory
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology,
Sackler Faculty of Medicine,
Tel Aviv University,
Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
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Prof. Florindo[/caption]
Prof. Helena Florindo, PhD
Head, BioNanoSciences – iMed.ULisboa
Faculty of Pharmacy,
University of Lisbon
Lisbon, Portugal
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: The war against cancer in general, and melanoma in particular, has advanced over the years through a variety of treatment modalities, such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. The immune checkpoint inhibitors brought a breakthrough solution for advanced melanoma patients, but only a low percentage of those respond to this therapy, developing resistance and being affected by severe side effects. Despite the success of several vaccines against viral diseases, this success has not been materialized yet against cancer.
This study led by my lab at Tel Aviv University, and Helena Florindo’s lab at the University of Lisbon, describes the development of an effective nano-vaccine against melanoma, that also sensitizes the immune system to immunotherapies.
This nano-vaccine prevented melanoma, and also led to remarkable tumor inhibition and prolonged survival in mice already affected by this disease. 
Mr Jue Sheng Ong, PhD Student
QIMR Berghofer’s Statistical Genetics Group
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous findings have shown conflicting results on whether coffee is associated with cancer risk.
To evaluate whether there’s any evidence for a causal relationship between coffee and cancer outcomes, we performed two types of association analyses using data from the half a million participants in the UK.
Jasleen Grewal, BSc.
Genome Sciences Centre
British Columbia Cancer Research Centre
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Cancer diagnosis requires manual analysis of tissue appearance, histology, and protein expression. However, there are certain types of cancers, known as cancers of unknown primary, that are difficult to diagnose based purely on their appearance and a small set of proteins. In our precision medicine oncogenomics program, we needed an accurate approach to confirm diagnosis of biopsied samples and determine candidate tumour types for where the primary site of the cancer was uncertain. We developed a machine learning approach, trained on the gene expression data of over 10,688 individual tumours and healthy tissues, that has been able to achieve this task with high accuracy.
Genome sequencing offers a high-resolution view of the biological landscape of cancers. RNA-Seq in particular quantifies how much each gene is expressed in a given sample. In this study, we used the entire transcriptome, spanning 17,688 genes in the human genome, to train a machine learning method for cancer diagnosis. The resultant method, SCOPE, takes in the entire transcriptome and outputs an interpretable confidence score from across a set of 40 different cancer types and 26 healthy tissues. 
