The Department of Pharmacology is pleased to welcome Dr. Leon Huang, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Abbvie Oncology Discovery.
The following, is an overview of this seminar, as described by Dr. Huang:
The idiotypic determinant (Id) of the immunoglobulin expressed by a B-cell malignancy can serve as a tumor antigen but is weakly immunogenic. We demonstrated that fusing CTLA-4 to Id represents an effective approach to prime antitumor immunities against B cell lymphoma and may be applicable to the treatment of other human cancers. IFN-alpha has potent immunostimulatory and antiproliferative effects against B-cell malignancies but its clinical utility is limited by systemic toxicity. We constructed a novel fusion protein consisting of anti-CD20 and IFN-alpha (IGN002) and demonstrated that IGN002 exhibited selective targeting and superior anti-tumor efficacy than rituximab. The results support the development of IGN002 for B-cell NHL treatment and first-in-human clinical studies are ongoing in the United States.