It is widely known that both bacterial and viral infections can be controlled by immunologic approaches involving cellular and humoral responses to the antigen specific to the agent. This has led to the suggestion that similar approaches may also be able to control cancer. Thus the tumor–associated antigens expressed in different cancers have become potential targets for cancer immunotherapy. The first generation of anticancer vaccines comprised of tumor cells, tumor cell lysate, tumor antigens and peptides derived from the tumor antigens. These are delivered to the patients through dendritic cells. While there is evidence of anti-tumor immunity in the patients,unfortunetly the progression of cancer is not blocked. This may result from a weak immune response ,which may result from the tumor antigen being self proteins and poor presentation of antigens. We are of the opinion that an appropriate design of a vaccine can lead to the induction of optimal immune responses. The advent of genetic engineering technologies has enabled such modifications to the vaccine antigen. In this regard, BioOnco has developed proprietary technology known as Designer Vaccines Platform (DVP) . DVP can be used to develop vaccines based on DNA (plasmid DNA sequences encoding respective antigens) and recombinant protein expression in either prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells. This new platform is flexible to accommodate multiple strategies to overcome the inherent limitations of the candidate vaccine antigens.
BioOnco has selected prostate cancer for developing vaccines. Currently radiation and surgery are being used to treat the early-stage or localised forms of prostate cancer. However, these modes of treatment are of minimal value in the context of recurring prostate cancer as well as metastatic cancer. This situation calls for novel therapeutic approaches including vaccines to treat hormonal–dependent and independent prostate cancers. To generate protective humoral and T-Cell responses, we plan to construct candidate vaccines based on the genes that have been found to be expressed in prostate cancer. The proteins encoded by these genes will be modified and tested in patients in combination for an effective response.
