Pauls Adam

T cell Engaging Cancer Immunotherapies

Therapeutic antibodies that antagonize immune cell checkpoint proteins such as PD-1 and PD-L1 have established a new paradigm for cancer treatment.  However, the clinical effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitor therapy is generally restricted to patients whose tumors are recognized as foreign by their cytotoxic immune cells, with immunogenicity typically due to high mutational burden in cancer cells.  Most tumors across cancer indications are poorly immunogenic and this has led to the discovery and development of therapeutic strategies that can promote the patients’ cytotoxic immune cells to recognize and attack tumor cells.  T cell Engaging bispecific antibodies (TcEs) that can re-direct cytotoxic T cells selectively to tumor cells have been validated in clinical studies for hematologic cancers, leading to promise for TcE approaches targeting solid cancer indications that have a more complex tumor microenvironment.  This presentation will highlight the discovery of novel TcEs for solid cancers.