Nanobiotix, a late clinical-stage nanomedicine company, has launched a research collaboration with Weill Cornell Medicine to begin nonclinical studies evaluating the impact of NBTXR3 on cGAS-STING pathway in mammary cancers.
Immunotherapy research
This research collaboration will be conducted over the course of a year with the goal of continuing exploration of the role of NBTXR3 in immune-oncology. The main objective of the work is to study the impact of NBTRX3 activated by radiotherapy on the cGAS-STING pathway (which has been identified as a key component of the anti-tumour immune response) using different in vitroand in vivomurine models (mammary).
Dr Sandra Demaria, Professor of Radiation Oncology and chief of the Division of Experimental Radiotherapy in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and principal investigator for the study, said: “We have learned that radiotherapy has the potential to convert a tumour into an in-situvaccine, and enhance systemic tumour responses to immunotherapy. But there is room for improvement: NBTXR3 nanoparticles enhance the pro-immunogenic effects of radiotherapy, and we want to understand how they work. This knowledge will further the development of this innovative approach for the treatment of cancer patients who are resistant to immune checkpoint inhibitors.”
NBTXR3 is a first-in-class product designed to destroy, when activated by radiotherapy, tumours and metastasis through physical cell death and to immunogenic cell death leading to specific activation of the immune system. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the launch of a clinical study of NBTXR3 activated by radiotherapy in combination with anti-PD1 antibody in lung, and head and neck cancer patients, which is expected to start in the second quarter of the year.