Carcinoembryonic antigen will be the first cancer antigen to be evaluated.
GlobeImmune inked a CRADA with the NCI to jointly develop products intended to treat a variety of cancers. GlobeImmune will utilize its Tarmogen® technology to develop multiple immunotherapy products expressing various cancer antigens provided by the NIH. The institute will conduct and fund preclinical and early clinical development of the product candidates.
CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen), the first cancer antigen to be evaluated in this collaboration, is overexpressed in a number of human cancers, according to Jeffrey Schlom, chief of the laboratory of tumor immunology and biology at the NCI, who will be the PI for these studies.
Tarmogens (targeted molecular immunogens) are whole, heat-killed recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast genetically modified to express one or more protein targets that stimulate the immune system against diseased cells, according to GlobeImmune. The whole heat-killed yeast, with the antigen expressed inside, is the product that is administered to the patient.
