OncoSec Medical Inc (ONCSQ)

[guti]

Tomorrow at the Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival, Dr. Vonderheide will be presenting on the topic of hTERT and IL-12 DNA immunotherapy using electroporation in patients with breast, lung, or pancreatic cancer.
The study is being done by Dr. Robert H. Vonderheide and sponsored by Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, using INO-1400 alone or in combination with INO-9012. Inovio’s INO-9012 is a dual promoter plasmid encoding human IL-12 and their INO-1400 is a plasmid encoding hTERT. According to Dr. Vonderheide, electroporation can be used to optimally and safely deliver DNA in vivo by creating a transient electric field to enhance the cellular uptake of large molecules such as DNA. Addition of IL-12 to hTERT significantly enhanced immune responses in preclinical models. We hypothesized that generation of robust T-cell immunity by immunotherapy with hTERT + IL-12 can be clinically used to reduce the risk of relapse in high-risk cancer patients in the adjuvant setting. An abstract of pre-clinical results were recently shown at ASCO 2015 which backs up the hypothesis.

Other similar presentations include:

Enhanced IL-12 production and T cell stimulation ability by dendritic cells matured in presence of GMP-grade Toll-like receptor ligands and IFN-?.

Demonstration of systemic antitumor immunity via intratumoral regulated expression of IL-12 as a gene therapy approach to treatment of cancer.