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BACKGROUND: With millions of new cases of cancer being diagnosed in the US annually, the development of new anti-cancer approaches is clearly a desirable goal. Therapeutic vaccines against cancer target primarily the induction of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL)that are capable of recognizing and eliminating tumor cells. Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TRT) is a tumor-associated antigen expressed in the majority of human tumors and it is one of the most promising target candidates for a therapeutic vaccine.
TECHNOLOGY: Several immunogenic peptides of human TRT have previously been identified that can activate CTL and are good candidates as a component of a cancer vaccine. Newly-identified peptides now provide additional candidate molecules for a cancer vaccine; these peptides have demonstrated CTL induction in human blood cells in vitro and immunogenicity in transgenic mouse models of the human immune system. They, therefore, provide well characterized candidate molecules that potentially have therapeutic capabilities in humans.
ADVANTAGES: The identification of additional immunogenic peptides of hTRT allows the utility of this approach to generating a cancer vaccine to be extended to a greater percentage of the population that was previously possible.
Case No: SD2006-095
Inquiries To: invent@ucsd.edu
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