NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[longfellow95]

Hi Senti.
I, of course, know what the term neo-antigen is normally defined as, and what it is purported to mean (a TSA with a lot of mutations)
And after a bit of reading up, I'm perfectly happy that the entirely autologous DCVax platform provides an exquisite approach to picking up all the individual patient's tumor specific antigens, whether you call them neoantigens or not!

I am just fond of asking jondoeuk what he thinks neoantigens are. Seeing as he frequently promotes so-called neoantigen therapies. With the implication being that DCVax is somehow deficient in its ability to amount an effective immune response to 'neoantigens'
Which couldn't be further from the reality.

So I want to see if jondoeuk understands the underlying biology.
And that is why I like to ask him from time to time; 'what's a neoantigen?'
(He has never answered me, by the way..)

The so-called neoantigen-targeting therapies are actually the ones that are usually deficient, because they frequently depend on whole exome sequencing and the production of a therapy based on allogeneic or otherwise engineered starting materials. And this simply leads to a vaccine that is likely to pick up some of the patient-specific, tumor-specific antigens, but unlikely to pick up all of them.

Which is the basis for my cynicism about so-called neoantigen therapies, and no doubt that of Dr Bosch's as well.