Researchers are exploring a revolutionary way to predict a patient's response to immunotherapies by creating a tumor “avatar” from biopsies.
Wisconsin-based Elephas Biosciences, working in collaboration with academic centers around the U.S., drew on 124 patient tumor samples collected from multiple research institutions to train its algorithmic ex vivo tumor sample model.
To do this, the researchers treated the samples with different immunotherapies—ranging from anti-PD-L1s to anti-CTLA-4 drugs—to measure the response via cytokines, which are the chemical messengers that signal if the immune system is launching an anti-tumor attack.
This resulted in an eight-cytokine panel that the researchers suggested can reveal if a tumor will respond to a particular immunotherapy. When tested on 28 patient tumor samples, including head and neck, lung, breast, bladder and kidney cancers, the panel was able to correctly predict immunotherapy response in 93% of cases, according to a recent study published in Cell Reports Medicine Oct. 15.
The panel was also able to identify 83% of the objective responders to the specific immunotherapy a patient had received.
Elephas' Chief Scientific Officer Hinco Gierman, Ph.D., told Fierce that traditional approaches to precision medicine are a “one-way street” where drug developers are “pulling information from the tumor, but there's no crosstalk.”
“What we are doing is different,” Gierman explained. “It's a two-way conversation with the tumor, and the way we talk to the tumor is with the signaling molecules called cytokines.”
The cytokine panel included markers of an active anti-tumor immune response, including T-cell recruitment (CXCL10, CCL17 and CCL22), immune cell killing activity (IFN-gamma, granzyme B, TNF-alpha and lymphotoxin-alpha) and immune regulation (IL-10).
“When we treat the tumor with the drug and we measure a response, it should mimic what would happen in that patient,” Gierman explained. “The tumor we have in the lab now becomes an avatar—a biological twin, not a digital one—of the patient's tumor in his or her body.”
Unlike organoids or other ex vivo tissue models, the tumor “avatars” were simply kept alive in a dish without altering the state of the tumor sample, Gierman explained.
Elephas launched in 2020 and went on to raise $41.5 million in series B funds in 2022 to fund the development of its oncology diagnostics platform. A year ago, the company secured another $40 million as it sought to accelerate commercialization of the platform.