Timeframe: 2025 – 2027
Goals: Assess the potential of a FLC therapeutic vaccine to prevent disease recurrence
Principal Investigators: Jens Bauer, PhD
Study Details: This study, led by Dr. Jens Bauer of the University Hospital Tübingen, aims to develop a new approach to improve the effectiveness of the anti-FLC vaccines that are under development in Tübingen and at Johns Hopkins University.
We’ve known for over a decade that DNAJB1-PRKACA is the single, nearly universal mutation that drives the cellular changes that cause FLC. We also know that using a vaccine to “teach” a patient’s immune system to recognize the “DP” fusion protein as foreign can be an effective therapeutic strategy. At least 5 FLC patients with stage IV disease are now cancer free after participating in trials of this approach. However, up to now, only approximately 25% of patients have achieved strong clinical benefits from the vaccine even though the vaccine induces an immune response in over 75% of tested patients.
This study plans to identify and test a new way to improve that success rate using “immunopeptidomics”, an approach that takes an inventory of every “flag” on the surface of a cancer cell and determines exactly what it is, if it is specific to the cancer, and if it can stimulate an immune response. Dr. Bauer plans to use this analysis to identify a range of non-mutated antigens that are uniquely expressed on FLC cells that can be used in a multi-target vaccine along with the peptide created from DP’s fusion junction.
DP-targeted immunotherapy is poised to fundamentally change the prognosis for many patients. If successful, this study could make vaccine-based therapy work for a larger slice of the patient population.