Improving Cancer Survival Prediction: A New Approach with EpiVax Therapeutics' Ancer Platform

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PROVIDENCE, R.I., May 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- EpiVax Therapeutics, Inc. ("EVT") announces the publication "Multi–step screening of neoantigens' HLA and TCR–interfaces improves prediction of survival" in Scientific Reports. This study demonstrates a superior method of survival analysis for cancer patients using EVT's Ancer platform. EVT spun-off from EpiVax, Inc. in 2017 to apply EpiVax tools to clinical research.

Built on validated in silico tools EpiMatrix and JanusMatrix, Ancer analyzes individual cancer mutanomes to define the presence of T cell epitopes likely to be immunogenic. The concept behind Ancer is that the presence of a mutation alone is not sufficient to generate a protective immune response, but that the differences present between the natural (human genome) sequence and the mutated sequence at the face of the epitope that is identifiable to T cells (the TCR-face) should be accounted for when creating precision cancer vaccines and predicting survival outcomes for cancer patients. This is because some mutations create self-like epitopes and can be tolerated by the immune system.

Researchers compared three approaches to analyzing cancer mutanomes and evaluated their ability to predict patient outcomes. Ancer, the best performing method, improved the differentiation of patients that did poorly from those who did well, accurately predicting survival outcome nearly 6 years longer as compared to other approaches, which only predicted as far as 3 years. This study has important consequences in our ability to identify patients with a high risk of tumor progression and early mortality based on their tumor genome.

On study implications, Dr. Randy Sweis of the University of Chicago stated, "These results suggest that defining the number of true neoepitopes using Ancer may represent a novel prognostic or predictive biomarker for cancer patients." Dr. Annie De Groot, EVT co-founder, suggested "In addition to biomarker identification, using Ancer novel precision vaccines for individual cancer patients offers major advantages compared to other approaches, since Ancer prioritizes truly immunogenic CD8 and CD4 neoepitopes, while removing self-like or inhibitory neoepitopes."

Visit Scientific Reports for the free full-text.

About EVT:
EVT employs a world-leading technology, developed over 23 years by EpiVax, to design vaccines that aim to activate the body's T cells to cure or prevent disease in the host. EVT's pipeline includes a COVID-19 vaccine and a personalized bladder cancer vaccine.

Interested investors can evaluate EVT on RedCrow here.      

Press Contact:
Katie Porter, Business Development Manager
EpiVax
[email protected]

SOURCE EpiVax Therapeutics, Inc.

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