T cell Receptor cDNAs to Treat Gliomas

Technology Description

Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors. Therapies remain very challenging given the paucity of targetable molecules since not all cells within a tumor can be targeted in the same way, and not all tumors express the same targets. Research at UCSF has led to the identification of the tumor-specific isoform RAD54B, a DNA repair and recombination protein, which is uniformly expressed at high levels in a vast majority of malignant gliomas. T cells expressing RAD54B-specific TCRs were generated and initial proof of concept studies have shown promise. This invention has the potential to improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy for glioma in clinical populations.

ADVANTAGES

• This new TCR can specifically recognize RAD54B
• RAD54B reliably targets the vast majority of malignant gliomas, with homogeneous expression within individual tumors, thereby making it an attractive immunotherapy
• Potentially better than peptide vaccine-based therapies which can have poor immunogenicity in the absence of an adjuvant and be susceptible to enzymatic degradation

Patent Status

Patent Pending