Student Startup winner Ivan Filin works on personalized cancer vaccines

His project is titled ‘Developing a personalized vaccine based on dendrite cells loaded with tumor-specific antigens’.

The funding (1 million rubles) will be allocated for company registration and materials purchases. The grantee comments, “The project, which is also my PhD thesis topic, aims to stimulate an individual immune system to fight this ailment. Results of clinical trials have shown its safety and, despite limited efficacy, ability to prolong periods of remission. One such compound, Provenge, has already received approval from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration.”

It has long been known that high-dose chemotherapy is not always able to provide sustainable remission, which stems from primary or secondary resistance to cytostatic drugs, “We aim to develop an adjuvant method of antitumor therapy based on dendrite cells, which results in better antitumor immunity and prolonged remission. The therapy is personalized and is based on a patient’s own immune cells.”

The project will yield unique data about the functional activity of the vaccine, i. e. its ability to activate immune cells for the targeted suppression of tumors in vitro. Naturally, the young scientist hopes to successfully complete preclinical trials and move to the clinical stage in cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Tatarstan.