Institute seminar November 5th 12:00 Yvonne Andersson
The institute seminar on Wednesday November 5th is held by Yvonne Andersson from Øystein Fodstad's group at The Department of Tumor Biology. Title of her talk:
"The immunotoxin story, from laboratory bench to cancer patients"
Time and place: 12:00, Seminar Room, F4, Institute for Cancer Research.
Abstract from Yvonne Andersson:
"The immunotoxin story, from laboratory bench to cancer patients":
During my talk I will guide you through a story on our work on immunotoxins (ITs), the first type of targeted therapy ever suggested (Paul Ehrlich in the late 19th century). We have a long experience working with ITs in human tumor cell lines in vitro and in tumor models in mice and rats. Recently, we have studied in detail the efficacy and mechanisms of action of our ITs in vitro and I will be summarizing the results. ITs remain a promising type of targeted therapy, as they consist of a cancer-specific antibody and a cell killing molecule, most commonly a toxin. However, the usefulness of ITs in the clinic has been hampered by anti-IT antibody response resulting in neutralization of the IT, thus limiting the prospect of repeated administration which is a necessity for obtaining measurable antitumor effects.
We have recently demonstrated, both in vitro and in animals, a new treatment strategy by combining ITs and cyclosporin (CsA). The combination represents a significant improvement of the clinical potential of ITs used in systemic therapy of cancer patients. We are now moving the IT+CsA strategy from the laboratory bench to the bedside.
Links:
Yvonne Andersson
Øystein Fodstad's group
Department of Tumor Biology
Institute seminars autumn 2008