“For me, this is one of the great honors of my research career,” says Dr. Ronald DePinho, who in 2009 won the prestigious Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research—and who has a touching personal tie to the namesake of the accolade. “I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Szent-Györgyi in my younger years, and was quite honored to later receive an award that bears his name.” It is natural to assume that to win the Szent-Györgyi Prize, one of oncology’s top laurels, a researcher must unravel a Gordian knot of genetic codes or discover some heretofore unknown cellular process.…
Author: Brett Johnson
Immuno-oncology focusing on women’s cancers Technology Although cancer therapies have been developed that stimulate the immune system, these approaches have often proven ineffective because the cancers remain invisible to the immune system. Cancers cannot induce an immune response because they no longer express sufficient levels of key proteins on their cell surface. Antigen presentation is impaired thus presenting a weakened signal to which the cellular immune system can respond. The company’ peptide antigens can stimulate both T-killer cells and T-helper cells. When combined with its Polystart expression vector provides a competitive edge in the in vivo T-cell vaccine sector. Clinical…
Technology CEL-SCI Corporation is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company developing products for life-threatening diseases (such as cancer and infectious diseases). Its lead pipeline product – Multikine investigational immunotherapy (Leukocyte Interleukin, Injection) is a complex biological product containing a patented mixture of pro-inflammatory cytokines, lyphokines and chemokines. The aim of the Multikine immunotherapy treatment regimen is to break tumor-tolerance and up-end the tumor’s defense mechanisms by increasing tumor–specific infiltrating T-cells, NK cells and Neutrophils in the tumor and its microenvironment. The Multikine regimen is administered prior to any other therapy (immediately after diagnosis) when the immune system is thought to be most amenable…
RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ: RXII) is a biotechnology company developing the next generation of immuno-oncology therapeutics based on its self-delivering RNAi (sd-rxRNA®) therapeutic platform. The Company’s discovery and research efforts are focused on developing sd-rxRNA therapeutic compounds to be used with an Adoptive Cell Transfer (ACT) approach. This process uses immune cells, such as T-lymphocytes that are isolated from the patient or retrieved from allogeneic immune cell banks, and then expanded and in some cases processed to express tumor-binding receptors. Our approach introduces a new and important step in ex-vivo processing of the immune cells where sd-rxRNA is used to eliminate the expression…
Head & Neck Cancer Report Launched The first chapter of the Cancer Impact Guide includes an overall summary of the current approach to diagnosis and standard of care and profiles of companies. Visit the Head and Neck section of the Cancer Impact Guide. Several promising public companies with catalysts on the horizon were identified including CEL-SCI, Soligenix and CytRx all who have become members of the Cancer Consortium, a global effort to increase collaboration of organizations of all types to advance progress in cancer. Head and neck cancer researchers around the globe continue to make steady progress toward developing effective…
Cible is a preclinical-stage cancer drug company that solves the major problems of traditional cancer therapy through the implementation of a smart drug platform. The first lead candidate, oxaliTEX, is found to be well tolerated, tumor localizing, and overcomes platinum drug resistance in pharmacological in vitro human cancer models. These attributes have high value in multiple indications that do not respond to platinum or biologicals, such as immunotherapies. In upcoming news, Cible is presenting at the NYC Oncology Investor Conference, occurring on May 8-9 at the office of Wilson Sonsini in New York City. Learn more and register to attend…
Tosk is a dynamic drug development company dedicated to alleviating the painful, debilitating, and potentially fatal side effects of front line cancer therapies and to make certain cancer drugs effective in patients who do not currently benefit from treatment. We are developing a family of what we call CompanionTM drugs that, when administered alongside certain cancer therapies, such as methotrexate, doxorubicin, cisplatin, EGFR inhibitors, and radiation — what we call parent therapies — will significantly improve patient outcomes. In upcoming news, Tosk is presenting at the NYC Oncology Investor Conference, occurring on May 8-9 at the office of Wilson Sonsini…
TargaGenix develops novel compounds that are effective on both drug-resistant tumors and cancer stem cells. In numerous preclinical models of cancer, including colon, pancreatic, prostate, breast and lung cancers the company’s lead product SBT-1214 has shown to completely eliminate the tumor. Additional studies have shown that SBT-1214 is able to effectively down-regulate “stemness” gene expression and kill cancer stem cells. Additional chemical modifications and a novel fatty-acid based nanoemulsion formulation result in a drug that has improved pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics properties as well as reduced toxicity. In upcoming news, TargaGenix is presenting at the NYC Oncology Investor Conference, occurring on…