Improving immuno-oncology tools to fight cancer: the use of complex immune organoids for testing the efficacy of peptides coated oncolytic viruses (PeptiCRAd / PeptiENV)
The Finnish Research Impact Foundation
University of Helsinki
Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment in the past 10 years, however the access for patients to experimental trials is still slow. It is clear that there is a need to develop new “human-based” models that better recapitulate the disease. Organoids are “mini-tumors” grown in the laboratory. They retain very similar characteristics as patients’ tumors and are excellent platforms to test new immunotherapies and accelerate their track to the clinic. To this end, scientists at iCAN have decided to partner with Valo Therapeutics to explore the possibility to use complex immune organoids to test the two lead immunotherapy drugs that Valo is developing. If successful, this will generate scientific breakthrough and significantly accelerate Valo’s path towards personalized cancer therapy.
Tandem Industry Academia (2020)