Blood donations for development of novel therapeutics
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Blood donations for development of novel therapeutics against cancer and other diseases
IRAS ID
316451
Contact name
Andrew B Gerry
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Accession Therapeutics Ltd.
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Accession Therapeutics is developing new targeted treatments for cancer and other serious diseases based on engineered viruses and bi-specific protein therapeutics. These treatments are aimed at specifically directing and activating the body’s own immune system to treat, remove or reduce serious diseases, such as cancer. The aim of this study is to obtain blood from healthy volunteers to be used, in its entirety (whole blood) or processed to components of blood (e.g., PBMCs, DNA), in
in vitro research to develop new potential treatments based on engineered viruses and protein therapeutics for cancer and other serious diseases.Accession therapeutics is developing therapies based on a common virus (similar to that which causes the common cold) that has been engineered to not affect normal tissues but to only infect cells that express a certain marker on their surface such as cancer cells. Once the cancer cell is infected the virus delivers a gene that makes the cancer cells themselves produce a therapeutic protein that treats the cancer and/or helps the body's immune system remove the cancer.
Accession therapeutics is also developing treatments based on antibodies that specifically bind to markers on the surface of diseased cells, such as cancer cells, and activate an immune response. These antibodies are engineered with the targeting antibody at one end, and the other end has an effector protein that binds, attracts and/or activates different parts of the immune system to treat and removed the diseased tissue, such as cancer cells.
Blood cells and other components of blood are required to develop new candidate drugs and to test their effectiveness and safety. New potential treatments may then be tested in clinical trials. This study is to provide fresh blood and blood components for this research.
REC name
London - West London & GTAC Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/1584
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jan 2024
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion