Monday 28th of February is Rare Disease Day, and NF2 Biosolutions will raise funds to sponsor a new approach for tackling Neurofibromatosis type 2. This approach is called Adoptive Cell Therapy with Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes, it is a type of novel immunotherapy that has been used and it’s effective in other cancers. On Monday 28th of February at noon (EST) / 5PM London time, we will also hold a webinar where Dr. Claire O’Leary will explain the objective of this project and how immunotherapy could be the answer to NF2 mutations.
Watch the webinar:
With your support, NF2 BioSolutions is launching and supporting many different novel therapies approaches. We are supporting several methods in parallel and we believe in a multi-modal approach since we don’t know what is going to work and how it is going to work. Of all the therapy approaches we are supporting, some have the goal of killing existing tumors, some have the goals of stopping tumor growth, and some search to stop new tumors from forming.
What are tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)?
TILs are a type of immune cell that has moved from the blood into a tumor. Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TILs) can recognize and kill cancer cells. In cancer therapy, Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes are removed from a patient’s tumor, grown in large numbers in a laboratory, and then given back to the patient to help the immune system kill the cancer cells. Also called TIL.
Adoptive cell therapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes:
This therapy is based on the infusion of T-cells obtained from the tumor of an individual patient. Immunological therapies have been demonstrated to be an effective treatment in a range of solid and hematological malignancies.
Objectives of this project:
In this project, we aim to investigate the potential for TIL immunotherapy for NF2 associated tumors by:
- Developing a method to isolate and expand TILs from freshly resected NF2 associated tumors
- Determining if these expanded TILs have anti-tumoural properties on NF2 associated tumor cells in vitro
Cost:
$106,000. It requires salary costs for 4 technicians to carry out the experimental work and material cost. These costs reflect the high cost of consumables to generate and analyze TIL.
Research Lab:
Principal Investigator: Omar Pathmanaban, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre
Co-applicant 1: Claire O’Leary, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Co-applicant 2: Gareth Evans, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Co-applicant 4: Richard Edmondson, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Co-applicant 5: Federico Roncaroli, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Co-applicant 6: Fiona Thistlewaite, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Co-applicant 7: Andrew King, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK