Validation of tumour protein expression by IHC in tumor biopsy.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Quantifying tumour cell receptor proteins in cancer FFPE biopsy using immunohistochemical methods. Validation of protein targets for bi-specific antibody drug conjugates.
IRAS ID
365809
Contact name
Katherine Vousden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Promatix Biosciences Ltd
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Chemotherapy drugs are highly toxic and kill dividing normal cells as well as cancer cells and are often associated with severe side effects for the patient. Because of this, there is a real need for better targeted treatments. One approach is to use antibodies that recognise and bind to cancer cells to deliver cytotoxic drugs to the tumour while sparing normal tissues. Such drugs are described as antibody drug conjugates - ADCs. This is a rapidly growing area of drug discovery with much promise. However, most ADCs in development recognise cancer markers that still have some healthy tissue expression. We have access to a database that allows us to compare expression of thousands of proteins on the surfaceome of cells taken from both healthy and cancer biopsy samples. We are exploring this data to find novel combinations of cell surface markers (targets) that provide a unique molecular ‘address’ for the tumour that we predict will enable safer and more effective delivery of cell killing drugs to cancer cells.
This project will validate our marker selection process using immunohistochemistry (IHC) techniques on fixed or frozen patient biopsy samples to determine their suitability as targets for subsequent ADC development. We will receive anonymised, formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) or frozen tumour biopsy slices and normal tissues that we will label with antibodies directed to our specific targets. Antibody binding to the tissue will be detected using either fluorescent or chromogenic substrates and visualised by microscopy for analysis. This will validate the presence or absence of the predicted markers and provide data in support of subsequent development of tumour-targeted therapies.
The overall aim is that the data generated from using the tissue samples will contribute to a better understanding of targeted cancer therapeutics.REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/SC/0405
Date of REC Opinion
22 Dec 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion