The Use of Human Blood Cells for Novel Drug Development
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Use of normal human blood cells for the development of bispecific antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for the targeted treatment of blood cancers
IRAS ID
254666
Contact name
Cath Eberlein
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
BiVictriX Therapeutics
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Blood cells have markers, or labels, attached to them known as Cluster of Differentiation (CD) markers, which allows the different cell types to be identified. Cancer causes cells to act abnormally so cancer cells can also display different labels from normal cells. These labels can be detected using antibodies. BiVictriX aim to develop bi-specific antibodies to detect only cancer cells. These bi-specific antibodies detect two labels – one for the type of cell and one not expressed normally on the cells acting as a cancer cell label, so only cancer cells will be detected or targeted by the bi-specific antibodies. These antibodies also have an inactive cytotoxic drug (a chemical which will kill cells) attached to them. If the target cells have both labels present, then the bi-specific antibody can bind to them. When this happens, the cytotoxic drug is taken into the cell, activated and kills the cell. If the cells only have a normal cell type label, then the bi-specific antibodies cannot bind to them, so they will not be affected by the cell killing chemical.\n\nOptimisation and validation of the BiVictriX bi-specific antibodies is being carried out on blood cancer cell models. To demonstrate the specificity of the bi-specific antibodies these need to be tested on normal blood cells. These experiments will also show that the bi-specific antibodies are safe i.e. do not kill normal cells.\n\nThese tests will be carried out on blood from healthy, anonymised donors, who have given fully informed consent for this testing.\n
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SW/0231
Date of REC Opinion
10 Oct 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion