Cancer-antigen

[Rachel Teitelbaum]

There was a while back a treatment I thought was promising, but have lost 
sight of the follow-up.  Anyone out there know what happened?  They were 
transfecting cancer cells with a plasmid containing the gene for a 
costimulatory molecule, called B7.  T cells, in order to recognize 
antigen need 2 signals, one from the peptide in the MHC context, to 
interact with the T cell receptor, and one from a costimulatory molecule, 
like B7, or some of the adhesion molecules.  They had done this 
transfection on melanomas, and a carcinoma, I believe, and found that 
they could get immunologically mediated rejection of the tumor.  The 
hypothesis was that cells turned tumorigenic are self, and thus have no 
costimulation, hence tolerize the host, which is why your immune system 
doesn't usually autoreact.

Anyway, when this came out I thought it looked promising.  Does anyone 
out there know what happened?  Was there ever a clinical trial?

-Rachel