BICYCLE® molecules as therapeutic agents for cancer treatment
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation of BICYCLE® molecules as therapeutic agents for cancer treatment utilising primary immune cells from commercial companies.
IRAS ID
338746
Contact name
Christopher Lelliott
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
BicycleTx Limited
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
More than 400,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK and is one of the leading causes of death. There is still a need to find treatments for cancer and identify new approaches to reduce the drawbacks of current treatments, such as toxic side effects.
Bicycle® is developing a new type of drug molecule, formed by constraining short linear peptides into a stabilized bi-cyclic structure using a central chemical scaffold. The resulting structure enables BICYCLE® molecules to effectively mimic protein-protein interactions. The small size and high specificity of BICYCLE® molecules offers the potential for improvements over antibodies and other small molecule therapies, including increased efficacy (anti-cancer effect) and reduced toxicity (unwanted side effects).
In early drug testing, compounds are tested on batches of immortalised cells. These cells are grow easily under laboratory conditions, allowing large experiments to be performed. However, these cell lines can grow and respond to treatments differently compared to normal cells and they are adapted to laboratory conditions that are different to the bodily environment that cells exist in. This includes missing the essential interactions with other cells that can change cellular activity.
To identify which BICYCLE® molecules are likely to be most effective in the body, BICYCLE® molecules will be tested on primary human blood and immune cells, alone or in culture with cancer-like cells. We will use pre-existing samples from commercial suppliers, which have consent for collecting samples for this purpose. We will test whether BICYCLE® molecules can change how immune cells function and see whether they can enhance the killing of the cancer cells. Since primary cells are taken directly from the body, they retain many of the normal characteristics that are missing in immortalised cells. This will give us greater confidence that our BICYCLE® molecules will be effective in patients.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/EE/0030
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jan 2024
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion