Evaluation of gene therapy vectors for cancer therapeutics
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of gene therapy vectors for cancer therapeutics
IRAS ID
200508
Contact name
Yatish Lad
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Oxford Biomedica (UK) Ltd
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Oxford Biomedica specialises in developing gene therapy for multiple clinical indications. One area being developed
by us and many other companies as well as academic groups is a process of re-targeting immune cells using a gene
therapy approach enabling them to kill tumour cells. To this end, immune cells are transduced with a lentiviral vector
expressing a tumour targeting moiety. This allows the modified immune cell to identify and kill the cancer cell upon
contact. Clinical trials have been highly efficacious in the treatment of childhood leukemias however in several cases
encountered with serious side effects caused by excessive immune cell activation. The aim of this research is to
modify the lentiviral constructs to enable targeting of specific cell types and incorporation of additional safety features allowing
better control of the modified cells and thus improve both the safety and efficacy of this new anti-cancer platform. In this
laboratory study we are requesting surplus blood from the NHS Blood Transfusion Service from which we will isolate
immune cells to test our lentiviral vectors.REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/WM/0111
Date of REC Opinion
24 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion